A first in Singapore, NTU's new partnership with the renowned US institution will enable NTU to be at the forefront of medical research in cancer therapy, and holds promise for possible patents and product commercialisation. 

NTU's School of Materials Science & Engineering (MSE) and Mayo Clinic's College of Medicine are developing nanoparticles to transport drugs or genes to cancer-affected areas in the body, as part of an exciting new tie-up in biomedical research. The work involves a team comprising Assoc Prof Ma Jan, Prof Freddy Boey and Dr Joachim Loo Say Chye. 

Current cancer treatments have many shortcomings. For example, chemotherapy and radiotherapy destroy both healthy cells and cancerous cells, while targeted drug delivery, a non-biological technique, has not been efficient in targeting cancer. In combining biological and non-biological techniques, the new cancer treatment NTU is developing with Mayo Clinic overcomes the setbacks both these techniques have when used individually. 

The NTU-Mayo Clinic research alliance, formalised on 15 May, thus holds great promise in the search for alternative cancer therapies. Furthermore, with Mayo Clinic being a hospital, clinical trials may be hastened. 

"This is an exciting collaboration, a first for Singapore in the field of biomedical research and between a Singapore university and Mayo Clinic," says Prof Boey, Dean of MSE. "Mayo Clinic's expertise in cancer research coupled with MSE's expertise in nanomaterial properties make for an excellent combination of strengths," he adds.
 
Dr Stephen Russell, Director of the Molecular Medicine programme at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, notes: "MSE's research expertise in nanomaterials is a perfect combination to our cancer research as the world goes in search of new effective cancer therapy methods. We hope that this tie-up will lead to exciting new innovations in this field and bring new hope to cancer patients."

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