The University of Sheffield

<p><strong>Overview:</strong></p>
<p>The University of Sheffield is a world top-100 university renowned for the excellence, impact and distinctiveness of its research-led learning and teaching. The University’s outstanding performance for excellent teaching and research, as part of a genuinely global community, is consistently confirmed by international independent assessments.</p>
<p>The university takes its public and social responsibility seriously. It is committed to making the world a better place. This approach is embedded in everything they do, from partnerships with local and global organisations to their research and teaching.</p>
<p><strong>Research:</strong></p>
<p>The University of Sheffield has a global reputation for world-leading research that makes a difference. It influences policy, changes lives and helps in understanding the world so that we can make it better. The university has over 180 research institutes, centres and groups. They address challenges from finding a cure for motor neurone disease to building a sustainable economic recovery. The research institutes and centres at the university have been created to address global challenges facing society, today and in the future. They are often interdisciplinary, with external collaboration and funding, and have earned international recognition.</p>
<p>The world-class research being undertaken at the University of Sheffield generates a wealth of new knowledge, much of which has the potential for licensing to innovative organisations seeking to augment their current activities or diversify their operations.</p>
<p><strong>Industry Partnerships:</strong></p>
<p>The University of Sheffield is collaborating with partners in the private, public and third sectors to find real-world solutions to real-world problems.</p>
<p>The university partners with organisations large and small, believing that by working together, we can find novel solutions to real-world problems. In their experience, it leads to world-class research and commercial success to businesses around the world. Together, The University of Sheffield shares knowledge, facilities and industry insight to help influence cultural, social, economic and political change.</p>


<h1 id="background">Background</h1>
<p>Glioblastomas are the most common high grade (cancerous) primary brain tumour in adults. Despite the application of aggressive surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, brain tumours severely threaten human health due to their fast development and poor prognosis. The best treatment currently is surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible, followed by chemoradiation to target cells which cannot be removed by surgery. This is a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Glioblastomas are aggressive tumours and often appear resistant to treatment, probably due to the heterogeneity nature.</p>
<p>The ultimate goal of brain tumour-targeted drug delivery is to target drugs across the blood brain barrier and increase drug accumulation in the tumour whilst reducing toxicity in normal brain tissue. A promising drug delivery approach is magnetic drug targeting which can be realised if a drug delivery vehicle possesses a strong magnetic moment.</p>
<h1 id="technology-overview">Technology Overview</h1>
<p>This solution is a wearable, point of care, treatment device, which enables targeted delivery of therapeutics to brain cancer patients. This targeted approach has the potential to increase the amount of therapy reaching the tumour site, whilst reducing unwanted side effects.</p>
<p>The wearable device contains a magnet array, which has the magnetic strength of a MRI scanner, but is miniaturised, thereby allowing it to fit into an apparatus (helmet) tailored to the precise surface geometry of a patient’s head. This will enable a patient to wear the magnetic device whilst the therapeutic agent, attached to tiny nanoparticles, is infused into circulation.</p>
<p>The researchers have demonstrated that this device can effectively trap magnetic nanoparticles injected into circulation in a pre-clinical model and importantly the particles cross the blood brain barrier and enter into the brain tumour. They saw a 19% increase in amount of nanoparticles in the brain tumour and surrounding tissue areas following wearing the device.</p>
<p>Additionally, using the device technology in combination with a chemotherapeutic labelled to iron particles they have shown that not only does the device enable targeting to the tumour site, the chemotherapeutic has therapeutic efficacy as demonstrated by lower tumour load and survival benefits when compared to subjects receiving a standard chemotherapy regimen.</p>
<h1 id="benefits">Benefits</h1>
<ul>
<li>Portable and personalised</li>
<li>Lightweight</li>
<li>Permanent magnetic field</li>
</ul>
<h1 id="opportunity">Opportunity</h1>
<p>Collaborative partnership (biotech/pharma with access to compounds for labelling and targeting).</p>
