PI Name & Affiliation:

Dr. Loganathan Rangasamy
Associate Professor
Centre for Biomaterials,
Cellular and Molecular Theranostics

Co-PI Name & Affiliation:

Dr. Drishty Satpati
Scientific Officer (G),
Radiopharmaceuticals Division BARC,
Mumbai 400085

Dr. Pradip Chaudhari
Advanced Centre for Treatment,
Research, and Education in Cancer (ACTREC),
Kharghar Mumbai 400085

Funding Agency: Department of Atomic energy (DAE)

Scheme: Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences (BRNS)

Overlay: Rs. 39,74,600

Duration of the Project: 3 Years

Dr. Loganathan Rangasamy

Dr. Drishty Satpati

Dr. Pradip Chaudhari


Graphical Abstract
solar

solar

Project Description

Fibroblast activation protein-alpha (FAP-alpha) is over-expressed in cancer cells such as colorectal, pancreatic, glioblastoma, ovarian, breast, hepatocellular, and cervical cancer. Also, its expression is low to undetectable in normal adult human tissues. FAP expression levels have been correlated with poor prognosis, patient outcome, susceptibility to treatment, and disease severity in cancer. Taken together, FAP represents an attractive target for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. FAP has emerged as a potential target for the selective delivery of chemotherapeutic drugs or radioactive isotopes to cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) present in solid tumors.

Many FAP-targeted drugs have already shown promising results in preclinical or clinical studies for the treatment of a wide variety of tumors, including FAP-antibody drug conjugates, small molecule FAP inhibitors (FAPI), FAPI-conjugated radiotracers or fluorescence imaging agents. These FAP-targeted conjugates will be labeled with diagnostic/therapeutic radionuclides to obtain FAP-targeted theranostic agents.



Products/ Instruments/ Results/ Outreach Activities :

solar

Combi flash RF Nextgen Flash Chromatography System

List of publications:
  1. A perspective on newly emerging proteolysis-targeting strategies in antimicrobial drug discovery, J. Venkatesan, D. Murugan, L. Rangasamy, Antibiotics 2022, 11(12), 1717 (Impact Factor 5.222)
  2. Pooled evidence from preclinical and clinical studies for stem cell- based therapy in ARDS and COVID-19, D Murugan, L Rangasamy, 2022, Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1-32, (Impact Factor 3.842)
  3. Rational Design of Diphenyl-Λ5σ4-Phosphinine Based Fluorescent Probe for the Selective Detection of Hg2+ Ions: Real Application in Cell Imaging and Paper Strips, S Kulathu Iyer, S Enbanathan, S Manickam, M Dhanthala Thiyagarajan, L Rangasamy, 2022, Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemistry, 437, 2023, 114431 (Impact Factor 5.141)
  4. Nanoparticle Enhancement of Natural Killer (NK) Cell-Based Immunotherapy, D Murugan, V Murugesan, B Panchapakesan, L Rangasamy, Cancers 14 (21), 5438, 2022 (Impact Factor 6.525)
  5. A perspective to weaponize microRNAs against lung cancer, D Murugan, L Rangasamy, Non-coding RNA Research, 8, 2023, 18-32 (Impact Factor – 5.0)
  6. The use of antimicrobial biomaterials as a savior from post-operative vascular graft-related infections: A review, D Murugan, L Rangasamy, Results in Engineering, 100662, 2022 (Impact Factor 5.0)