The activities of the Partners

The Liver Smart Drug project, which aims is to promote innovative technologies for the development and validation in the industrial field of macromolecular nanostructured systems for the effective treatment of liver cancer, has been carried out thanks to the collaboration of five Sicilian university Departments that have contributed, according to their skills, to the achievement of important scientific results. Specifically the Department of Surgical Medical Sciences and Advanced Technologies of the University of Catania has preliminarily examined the epidemiological data of hepatocarcinoma in Sicily; 

• The Department of Drug and Health Sciences of the University of Catania designed nanocarriers with the aim of enhancing the activity of Sorafenib and Lenvatinib, the chemotherapeutic agents covered by the study, and therefore reducing their dosage with consequent benefits for the patient;
• The Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Biological Sciences and Technologies of the University of Palermo has developed nanosystems, thus improving the bioavailability and therapeutic index of anticancer active drugs, as well as their controlled and targeted release, in order to obtain a selective efficacy accompanied by a reduction of the most disabling side effects; 

• The Department of Chemical, Biological, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Sciences of the University of Messina produced in vitro, in vivo and ex-vivo biological models while the Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences of the University of Catania dealt with preclinical studies, in vitro and in vivo, useful for evaluating the effectiveness of new generation LSD systems in comparison with the already patented LSD system.