MaNaCa project: Collaboration to develop magnetic nanohybrids for cancer therapy

21.10.2019

Intelligentsia are proud to be a consortium partner in the recently launched MaNaCa project.

Coordinated by the Institute for Physical Research in Armenia and involving the University of Duisburg-Essen and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as well as Intelligentsia, MaNaCa is focused on developing and characterising magnetic nanohybrids for their application to cancer therapy.

Magnetic nanohybrids based on biocompatible magnetic ferrites offer significant promise for theranostics applications, since they can be remotely and non-invasively employed as smart actuators and carrier vectors. Among their major advantages are their tuneable magnetic features, biocompatibility, diversity of functionalization, and size comparable to functional biomolecules. Not only can magnetic nanohybrids be functional by themselves - such as hyperthermia mediators in cancer treatment - but they can also be used as carriers and actuators for thermally- or mechanically controlled drug release.

Over the next three years, the MaNaCa consortium partners aim to demonstrate low-cost and up-scalable production processes for magnetic nanohybrids, with 900k€ funding support from the Twinning scheme of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Widening programme.

Intelligentsia helped to write the MaNaCa project proposal and are involved in the project’s dissemination, training and project administration activities. MaNaCa marks the fifth EU funded project (FP7 and H2020) involving the Institute for Physical Research with Intelligentsia.