My PhD investigates the role of nanotechnology to advance diagnosis and treatment of patients with head and neck cancer. This research brings together a team of expert South Australian Head and Neck Surgeons from the Royal Adelaide Hospital with  Bioengineers from the Future Industries Institute and scientists from the Basil Hetzel Institute to translate cutting-edge and innovative nanoparticle technology into clinical practice. My supervisors are Professor PJ Wormald, Professor Benjamin Thierry and Dr. Andrew Foreman. 

Oral cancer is the 12th most common cancer in the world and contributes a significant public health burden because of the aggressive nature of this disease and its associated poor patient survival outcomes.

Nanoparticles offer several exciting opportunities in oral cancer research. Nanoparticles can be used as ‘tracers’ to help us detect the spread of microscopic cancer in imaging studies, by labelling them with immune antibodies that are specifically attracted to cancer cells. Accurate detection of cancer is critical because a missed diagnosis portends an extremely poor prognosis. They can also be used in a therapeutic fashion. For example they can be designed to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs directly to the tumour, reducing the systemic toxic effects of therapy. In a similar fashion they can be used for “radiosensitisation” of tumours by enhancing the effects of radiotherapy on the tumour. My team have manufactured magnetic nanotracers and have designed a unique hand-held 'magnetometer probe' that will enable us to perform sentinel lymph node mapping using a novel magnetic technique in the head and neck to identify the regional spread of tumour to the lymph nodes in the neck. 

The specific objectives of my PhD are to initially develop a small animal model of oral cancer and then to explore in this model, the feasibility of using advanced nanoparticles in each of these innovative diagnostic and treatment strategies. I will work with our team of experienced Head and Neck Surgeons to trial these treatment strategies in human patients.

As part of my PhD I will also spend 12 months at Stanford under the supervision of Professor Eben Rosenthal analysing the role of nanoparticles for “real-time optical image guided surgery”. This emerging technique involves labeling nanoparticles with a fluorescent tag, which binds to cancer cells so that we can visualize the tumour margins during surgical resection. This improves our chances of complete tumour clearance, which we know gives our patients a much better chance of survival. 

Realisation of our aims could revolutionise the treatment paradigm of our patients giving them more efficient and accurate diagnoses and improving the success, while reducing the associated morbidity, of our medical, radiotherapeutic and surgical treatment.