Antibody conjugated nanoparticles (ACNPs) represent a novel strategy for the development of therapies exploiting antibodies to augment the delivery of chemotherapy payloads. Following in the footsteps of the success of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), ACNPs are only now reaching clinical evaluation. In this review we discuss the success of ADCs and explore the opportunities ACNPs offer, such as broad chemotherapy payload selection, high drug to antibody ratios and the ability to finely tailor drug release in comparison to ADCs. The ability of ACNPs to elicit increased avidity due to multivalent effects and the potential to use these modular platforms in immunotherapeutic approaches is also explored. Through addressing challenges that still remain in bringing these complex formulations to the clinic, ACNPs hold obvious potential for the treatment of a wide range of cancers and other diseases where selective targeting of drug agents is essential.

Upward flame spread experiments were conducted on a thin fabric cloth consisting of 75% cotton and 25% fiberglass. The sample is sandwiched symmetrically with stainless steel plates with the exposed width varying between 2 to 8.8 cm from test to test and >1.5m tall. The bottom edge was ignited resulting in a symmetric two sided flame. For the narrower samples (≤ 5cm), two sided flame growth would proceed until reaching some limiting value (15-30 cm depending on sample width). Fluctuation or instability of the flame base on one side would initially become visible and then the flame base would retreat downstream and cause extinguishment on one side. Detailed examination of the still images shows that the fuel continues to vaporize from the extinguished side due to the thermally thin nature of the fuel. But, due to the remaining inert fiberglass mesh, which acts as a flashback arrestor, the extinguished side was not able to be reignited by the remaining flame. The remaining flame would then shrink in length due to the reduced heat transfer to the solid to a shorter length. The one-sided flame will spread stably with a constant speed and a constant flame length to the end of the sample. A constant length flame implies that the pyrolysis front and the burnt out fronts move at the same speed. For the wider samples (≥ 7cm), no one-sided extinction is observed. Two-sided flames spread all the way to the top of the sample. For these wider widths, the flames are still growing and have not reached their limiting length if it exists.Care was taken to minimize the amount of non-symmetries in the experimental configuration. Repeated tests show that blow-off can occur on either side of the sample. The flame growth is observed to be very symmetric during the growth phase and grew to significant length (>10cm) before extinction of the flame on one side. Our proposed explanation of this un-usual phenomenon (i.e. stronger two-sided flame cannot exist but weaker one-sided flame can) is as follows: The observed one-sided extinction is a blow-off induced by buoyant entrainment. It is known that the flammable diffusion flame regime is bounded by quenching and blow-off limits when varying incoming air velocity. The narrowest samples tested (between 2 and 5 cm) begin within the flammable range, but as the flame grows, the buoyancy driven air velocity increases at the neighborhood of the flame base. The initially stable flame crosses the extinguishment boundary resulting in a flame blow-off. When one-side of the flame extinguishes, the remaining side shrinks due to the reduced heat transfer to the solid. This reduces the induced velocity and the flame becomes stable. It is proposed that this may have implications to upward flame growth beyond this experiment.

Facile low temperature aqueous heterogeneous RAFT polymerization for preparation of novel star polymers with acid-labile diacetal-based cores for DNA delivery.

The use of CTX as a targeting agent for camptothecin-loaded polymeric nanoparticles directed against KRAS mutant CTX-resistant cancer cells was investigated. CTX increased CPT internalisation into cancer cells resulting in elevated cancer cell death.