Experimental Chemotherapy and Nanomedicine

PI: Mónika Kiricsi, PhD. assistant professor

We examine the cellular, biochemical and molecular biological effects of nanoparticles on cancer cells and on various non-cancerous cells in the tumor microenvironment. We identify the tumor- and metastasis-promoting effects of cancer-associated fibroblasts as well as of macrophages, and we analyze whether nanoparticle treatments can modulate these features of stroma cells. We delineate the molecular mechanisms, the signaling pathways and the gene expressional changes induced by various nanoparticles in cancer cells. We perform experiments with nanoparticles designed and tailored for drug development and radiosensitization.
Apart from nanomaterials, the anti-cancer efficiency of steroid derivatives and metal complexes are also screened.
In collaboration with the Department of Microbiology the metastatic ability of tumor cells exposed to microbial stimuli is investigated.
We perform our experiments mainly using in vitro cell cultures and in collaboration with research groups of the Biological Research Centre, occasionally in in vivo animal model systems.

All publications on: PubMed