In Portugal, the incidence of breast cancer represents 30% of the new diagnosed cancer cases in women every year, with mortality indexes of 18%. Among them, 20% corresponds to triple-negative breast-cancer (TNBC), the most lethal stripe. TNBC  lacks the expression of any of the most common receptors and growth factors used for the clinical diagnosis of breast cancers. The only systemic therapy currently available for patients with TNBC is adjuvant chemotherapy with various combinations of anthracyclines , taxanes or cyclophosphamide. However, the response to the treatment is far from ideal. High rates of relapse, in addition to low survival rates in patients with residual disease after treatment, are observed. Therefore, the lack of targeted therapeutic options, the limited efficacy of current treatments, together with the well-known harmful side effects of chemotherapy, demand an urgent effort to discover specific targeting strategies that enable early diagnostic methods and on-site therapies.

The main objective of this project is to ameliorate the prognosis of TNBC through the preparation and validation of a biocompatible target-less theranostic probe able to offer active accumulation on tumor site under external stimuli, non-invasive imaging capabilities and combinatorial therapy. To achieve this ambitious goal, solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) will be synthesized from commercially available sources, simultaneously loaded with a cocktail of drugs and nanoparticles, and surface functionalized with different responsive ligands. 

Overall, at the end of the project an in vitro and in vivo validated theranostic probe will be delivered showing i) active targeting, ii) combinatorial therapy, and iii) T2w-MR imaging capabilities. These expected results will enable translational research and will be key in the advance towards an adequate and timely therapeutic intervention in patients with TNBC, being also a step forward on the way to targeted image-guided therapies of cancer.