DR. RAJALETCHUMY VELOO KUTTY
Senior Lecturer Universiti Malaysia Pahang
Faculty of Chemical and Process Engineering Technology
v.rajaletchumy@gmail.com

NO	NAME	INSTITUTION	FACULTY/SCHOOL/ CENTRE/UNIT
1	Jose Rajan	UMP	Faculty of Industrial Sciences & Technology
2	Raihana Zahirah Binti Edros	UMP	Faculty of Chemical and Process Engineering Technology
3	Norashikin Binti Mat Zain	UMP	Faculty of Chemical & Natural Resources Engineering
4	Sri Puvanesvari Gannasin	MSU	FACULTY OF HEALTH & LIFE SCIENCES

2 years (15 August 2017 - 14 August 2019)

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by its higher incidence of recurrence and more aggressive clinical course. Due to higher rate of recurrence, early detection is urgently needed as well as an effective delivery of anticancer drug to tumor sites to increase patient survival. In this study, we develop theranostic nanoparticles loaded with anticancer drug (docetaxel) and diagnostic agent (iron oxide) to achieve simultaneous effect of therapeutic and diagnostic. Vitamin E TPGS was used as the nanocarriers, it has amphiphilic structure which is useful in the preparation of nanoparticles to encapsulate hydrophobic drug. This docetaxel-iron oxide loaded TPGS (DIT) micelles were synthesized using solvent casting method. These micelles were characterized for its nanoparticles properties such as size, surface charge, morphology, drug loading, drug release and cytotoxicity study. The synthesized micelles size found in the range of 15nm to 100nm for single drug and dual drug loading respectively. The micelles have uniform size distribution with polydispersity index less than 3.0. the surface charge of the micelles is negative between -7 to -20 mV. Whereas the micelles have smooth spherical shape as observed under cryo-TEM. Overall, the micelles have higher drug loading and high IC50 value to kill 50% of the breast cancer cell which gives effective delivery for triple negative breast cancer treatment

1. To correlate the properties of multifunctional nanoparticles with cellular uptake activities of triple negative breast cancer cells.
2. To examine the cytotoxicity effects of the multifunctional nanoparticles on the cancerous cells against single drug.

1. Publication : Article in Indexed Journals
   • 2 indexed journal ( 1 ISI, 1 SCOPUS INDEXED)
   • 1 scopus indexed proceeding
   • 1 non indexed journal

• CITREX 2020 (gold)
• CITREX 2019 (bronze)

This proposal addresses an important problem in human health care, i.e. cancer diagnosis and treatment and provides a possible solution to cure cancer at its earliest stage. Early-stage diagnosis is a key for the patient’s prognosis. High concentration of effective drugs can be specifically delivered mostly to cancer cells with little effects on healthy cells. The therapeutic effects will be high, and the side effects can be under control. This way can make cancer curable. The same philosophy can also be applied to treat other fatal diseases. This project can promote the health care industry in the world. It has high potential to be successful in the market. For example, taxoids (Paclitaxel and Docetaxel) have been the #1 seller among all anticancer drugs. The patent of Taxol® (the current clinical formulation of paclitaxel in adjuvant Cremophor EL) has just expired. Many countries are trying to follow the formulation to cut the cake of the Taxol® market. We shall show in this proposal from our preliminary results that our nanoparticle formulation can do much better job with much fewer side effects than Taxol®.