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Nanomedicine and Nanoscale Delivery (Focus Group – NND)

Metabolic Glycoengineering–Driven ‘Clickable’ Nanoemulsions for Biomarker-Agnostic Tumour Targeting

Maria Iglesias Baleato – PhD student, Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS); Iria Fontán Luis – Master student, Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS); María de la Fuente Freire – PI, Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS)
Introduction: Solid tumours remain difficult to treat due to heterogeneity, adaptive resistance, and the absence/ instability of actionable biomarkers, limiting the efficacy of targeted therapies. Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (15–20% of breast cancer cases), exemplifies this challenge and represents a relevant model for biomarker-agnostic strategies. Metabolic Glycoengineering (MGE) enables the selective installation of bioorthogonal azides on tumour cell glycans, generating artificial biomarkers for click conjugation with functionalized nanocarriers. Here, we combine MGE with functionalized nanoemulsions to establish a precision targeting platform for biomarker-poor tumours.

Learning Objectives:

  • Describe the MGE principles and its application as biomarker agnostic strategy for tumor cell surface modification
  • Explain how N3–DBCO click chemistry enables selective conjugation of nanoemulsions to MGE-tumor cells
  • Evaluate the potential of clickable SNs as a precision nanomed platform for targeting hard to treat tumors