From Tumor Targeting to Metastasis Eradication: Boron-based Nanoparticles in Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT)
Oct 10, 2025
2:30PM to 3:30PM
Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/10/2025
2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Categories
Prof. Pei Yuin Keng
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan
Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a promising cancer treatment that integrates chemotherapy and radiotherapy, enabling precise cellular targeting through neutron irradiation. However, its clinical application remains limited by the challenge of delivering sufficient boron-10 (¹?B) to tumor cells—exceeding 10? boron atoms per gram—while maintaining a high tumor-to-blood ratio and ensuring uniform distribution throughout solid tumors. Traditional small-molecule boron drugs often fail to achieve these criteria, necessitating the development of advanced boron nanomaterials with enhanced tumor selectivity and retention. Boron carbon oxynitride (BCNO) nanoparticles represent a promising boron-rich platform for advancing boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT), owing to their high 10B payload, photoluminescence, and structural tunability. Our research has systematically developed BCNO-based nanotherapeutics to overcome the pharmacokinetic and delivery limitations of conventional boron drugs such as borophenylalanine (BPA) as a boron drug for BNCT. We first demonstrated that PEGylation of BCNO nanoparticles significantly improved aqueous stability, biocompatibility, and blood circulation half-life, enhancing passive tumor accumulation via the EPR effect. To further improve tumor specificity, folic acid-functionalized BCNO nanoparticles were synthesized, leveraging folate receptor overexpression in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). More recently, we engineered stimuli-responsive DHGC@BCNO nanoassemblies through electrostatic self-assembly with polyethylene glycol-graft-polyethyleneimine (PEG-g-PEI) copolymers. These assemblies maintained colloidal stability during circulation but underwent pH-triggered disassembly into ~20 nm, highly cationic fragments at the tumor site, facilitating deep tissue penetration and cellular uptake. In 4T1 TNBC models, DHGC@BCNO nanoassemblies achieved an 18-fold increase in tumor boron accumulation and a 4-fold enhancement in the tumor-to-blood boron ratio compared to BPA, highlighting their superior tumor selectivity and delivery efficiency. Importantly, combining DHGC@BCNO-mediated BNCT with ?-PD-L1 immune checkpoint blockade resulted in complete suppression of lung metastases—a first demonstration of BNCT-induced abscopal effects in metastatic TNBC. This platform offers a robust foundation for systemic,
immuno-potentiated BNCT with translational potential for treating aggressive, refractory cancers.
Speaker bio:
Prof. Keng received her bachelor degree in Chemistry at Lewis Clark State College, USA and later pursued her Ph.D degree at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Upon obtaining her Ph.D in Chemistry, she continued with her postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). After a year of postdoctoral work in microfluidics and radiochemistry, Prof. Keng was then promoted as a tenured track assistant professor in the same department in UCLA. During her two years of independent research at UCLA, she received several research grants from the National Health Institute and Department of Energy for the developing microfluidic radiosynthesizer, published several impactful papers in the field microfluidics and molecular imaging. She then left UCLA and academia due to family reasons and joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at NTHU in 2019. Her current research group focused on developing boron-based nanostructures for cancer therapy and environmental remediation.
In-Person: ABB 102
Online: Echo360