Graduate Student Hsin-Yin (Grace) Chuang will make a presentation on the research she has been conducting, titled "uPA-mediated or ACPP-mediated Poly(amidoamine)-based Targeting Drug Delivery System on Triple Negative Breast Cancer.

Around 15% of breast cancers are triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), which is characterized by the absence of three common receptors—estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, and therefore do not respond to hormonal or anti- HER2 therapies. Urokinase-type plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) and matrix metalloproteinase-2/-9 (MMP- 2/MMP-9) are overexpressed in both TNBC cells and cancer- associated stromal cells. In this study, we developed two polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimer-based targeted drug delivery systems to utilize urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and activable cell-penetrating peptide (ACPP) to target uPAR and MMP-2/MMP-9, respectively. The constructed systems were tested for their ability to target cancer and its microenvironment and improve the transfection efficiency of anticancer nucleic acid.