Peptide-Based Hydrogels: A Better Way to Deliver Anticancer Drugs

The Associate Researcher of the TPCI/NHRF Dr. Anastasia Rissanou is corresponding coauthor of the publication FmocFF Peptide Hydrogel Is a Promising Matrix for Encapsulation and Controlled Release of the Anticancer Peptide Drug Bortezomib, P. Divanach, A. Noti, P. Vouvopoulos, T. Athanasiou, N. Kountourakis, V. Harmandaris, A. N. Rissanou^*, and A. Mitraki^*, in the leading journal in the field of molecular biology and biochemistry, Biomolecules 2025, 15(6), 839.

The interdisciplinary research was carried out in collaboration with the experimental group of Prof. Anna Mitraki of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of the University of Crete.

One major public health issue is cancer chemotherapy; despite constant progress in the area, administration of anticancer drugs to patients is often associated with serious side effects. It is therefore imperative to develop vehicles for encapsulation and controlled delivery of such drugs. Based on computational and experimental results and in combination with the evaluation of drug release, we propose the hydrogel of the dipeptide Fmoc-FF as a promising matrix for the controlled delivery of the anticancer drug Bortezomib (BTZ).

The publication was selected to appear as “Title Story” on the journal’s homepage: Biomolecules