2022 ORAU Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award

Endometrial cancer is among the top 10 causes of cancer-related deaths in the United States, and is the most common gynecological malignancy worldwide. Mortality rates in endometrial cancer are much higher when the cancer is diagnosed at or beyond Stage III and there is a dearth of FDA- approved therapies to treat this advanced stage disease. The proposed research project couples the powerful chemotherapeutic paclitaxel, which has been approved for use in other female cancers, and the reactive oxygen species producing copper oxide nanoparticles. Paclitaxel will be delivered in a sustained-release polymeric fashion to improve efficacy even in paclitaxel resistant cancer cells. This will be combined with copper oxide nanoparticles as a potent and novel, antineoplastic agent. We hypothesize that this combined therapeutic mechanism will have the power to induce DNA damage via distinctly different mechanisms, thereby affecting a larger proportion of the tumor population than has been realized in existing therapies. The implications of this work will be significant in treating advanced stage endometrial cancer that is ineligible for curative surgery and accounts for the majority of endometrial cancer deaths.