Magnetic hyperthermia (MHT) is based on the magnetic heat losses of magnetic nanoparticles under an alternating magnetic field (AMF) which results in the production of heat to ‘kill’ tumor cells. This treatment is applied in clinical trials as adjuvant therapy to treat some solid tumors at magnetic field conditions that are clinically safe (100 kHz and up to 24kA/m). The remote actuation by non-harmful magnetic fields enables to provide a more selective heat treatment with less side effects than traditional hyperthermia approaches. This seminar aims at providing an overview of the main research activities of our group to advance MHT and combine it with different therapeutic modalities. I will first focus on the preparation of magnetic nanoparticles with optimal heat performance in MHT and our attempt to scale up the production of magnetic materials while preserving optimal MHT heat performance. I will then introduce thermo-responsive polymeric based nanocubes and clusters as drug carrier for chemotherapeutic agents and the heat-mediated drug release based on global temperature increase. Next, I will focus on our in vitro study on tumor spheroids from cancer cell model to determine the magnetic hyperthermia effects, with or without the association of chemotherapeutic drugs, on different subpopulations of cancer cells. Finally, I will go through our preclinical studies on xenograft murine tumor model to evaluate the materials efficacy and the bio-distribution study of some of the best performing materials which were developed by us.

 This research project has received funding from the EU's Horizon Europe framework programme for   research and innovation under grant agreement BRIDGE (n. 101079421 from 01/10/2022 – 30/9/2025).

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