Bart Crielaard receives Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship

The European Commission awarded dr. Bart Crielaard a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship for his proposal “Aptamer nanostructures dual-targeted to the HER receptor family for cancer therapy (ADHERE)”.

In cancer immunotherapy, antibodies that target specific antigens expressed by cancer cells are used for the treatment of several forms of cancer. There is, however, evidence that targeting multiple receptors at the same time is beneficial for improving treatment efficacy and reducing drug resistance. Aptamers are short single-stranded oligonucleotides that can bind a target molecule in a similar fashion as antibodies, and they may represent, due to their physicochemical properties and modular design capacity, a superior alternative strategy for targeted cancer therapy.

In ADHERE, which is funded for period of 2 years, Dr. Crielaard will design and study aptamer nanostructures with bispecific (against two different receptors) and multivalent (up to 4 binding ligands on a single nanostructure) targeting properties for cancer therapy.

This project is part of the reintegration panel of the Marie Curie Action, which is aimed at researchers that have recently returned from a research position outside Europe to enable them to integrate into a long-term research position in Europe.

The research group of Dr. Crielaard at Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials works on the design and evaluation of nano- and biomaterials that can be used for clinical applications, such as nanoparticles for therapeutics and diagnostics.

For more information regarding the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, please consult the website of the European Commission.