Submit Document

2015 Elite Editing Thesis Write-up Scholarship Winner

IMG_0773 (resized 1)

After assessing hundreds of applications from Australia and New Zealand, Elite Editing is delighted to announce that the winner of the 2015 Thesis Write-up Scholarship is Guanyu Chen. Guanyu is completing a PhD entitled ‘Development and Optimisation of Novel Nanoparticulate Delivery Systems for Oral Delivery of Gemcitabine to Treat Cancer’ at the School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland, under the supervision of Dr Jingyuan Wen, Dr Darren Svirskis, Professor Yuan Huang and Professor Weiyue Lu.

As partof the scholarship, Guanyu will receive financial assistance from Elite Editing while writing up his thesis, amounting to $1,000 per fortnight for 12 weeks ($6,000 total, tax free).

Elite Editing would like to thank all of the students who took the time to apply for our scholarship. We were extremely impressed by the quality and originality of the applications, which came from such diverse areas as Mathematics, Fine Arts, Engineering, Anthropology, Physics, Ecology, Literature and Education. With so many outstanding and deserving applicants, it was an extremely difficult and considered process to select only one winner. We wish all of you the very best.

Below is Guanyu’s Abstract:

Abstract

Gemcitabine is a newly discovered anticancer drug candidate for use in treating breast and pancreatic cancer. One limitation in its use is that it has a very short half-life of 8–17 min in human plasma. My project is to develop an appropriate advanced carrier system for gemcitabine via oral administration, which will be able to prevent degradation of the drug in the gastrointestinal tract, increase its bioavailability and provide a controlled drug release profile. So far, three optimal formulations have been developed, selected by characterisation. From cytotoxicity cell culture studies and in-vivo pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies, the developed oral anticancer delivery systems have shown elevated oral bioavailability and plasma half-life, and inhibited tumour cell growth in cell culture. Promising results have also been observed in the systems’ therapeutic effect of tumour reduction in animal studies, and satisfactory overall safety has been achieved. Further investigations to be undertaken will focus on cellular uptake and the drug transportation mechanism. The delivery systems are expected to establish a promising platform for oral delivery of gemcitabine in novel anticancer therapy.