PhD Scientific Days 2025

EUniWell I.

Development of therapeutic systems based on nanoemulsions for ovarian cancer treatment

Name of the presenter

Fuentes Varela Laura

Institute/workplace of the presenter

Translational Medical Oncology Group (Oncomet), Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS)

Authors

Laura Fuentes¹, María Emilia Vásquez¹, Carmen Abuín¹, Rafael López², Ana B. Dávila-Ibáñez¹

1: Translational Medical Oncology Group (Oncomet), Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS)
2: Cancer Network Research (CIBERONC)

Text of the abstract

Ovarian cancer is a leading cause of cancer death among women, responsible for approximately 207,000 deaths annually worldwide. This high mortality rate is largely due to late-stage diagnosis because of unspecific symptoms that overlap with other conditions. Standard treatments for advanced disease usually include surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy, which often results in severe side effects. Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) using photosensitizer-loaded nanoemulsions (NEs) has emerged as an alternative approach offering selective targeting cancer cells while minimizing systemic toxicity.

In this context, we propose the formulation of oil-in-water NEs by spontaneous emulsification using verteporfin (VP) as the photosensitizer, a molecule that is activated under near-infrared (NIR) light exposure and causes cell death. Two different NEs were developed to load VP based on distinct fatty acid core compositions: oleic acid and miglyol. The hydrophobic properties of VP enabled its encapsulation at various concentrations, and Encapsulation Efficiency was quantified by using spectrophotometric analysis. Physicochemical characterization was done by different technologies such as Transmission Electron Microscopy, Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis, and Dynamic Light Scattering to determine the concentration of VP-NEs, their size, their polydispersity index, and their charge. Further, these parameters were used to control its stability at different environmental conditions related to temperature and light exposure. In vitro assays on SKOV-3 ovarian cancer cells were performed not only to demonstrate its internalization but also to evaluate the cytotoxic effects related to NIR light activation.

The physico-chemical characterization enabled optimization of the formulation process while in vitro assays demonstrated efficient cellular uptake and confirmed the potential of these systems for their use as photodynamic therapy in ovarian cancer. Overall, the different NEs showed differences in terms of cellular viability, leading to an improvement of PDT when using miglyol-based NEs due to their higher capacity of drug loading and their lower intrinsic cytotoxic effect.

This work has not received public financing.