Development of innovative proton and neutron therapies with high cancer specificity by 'hijacking' the intracellular chemistry of haem biosynthesis.

Deep-lying cancers, such as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) brain cancer, are very difficult to access and incurable by the current standards of care. The fluorescence of photosensitive molecules (PSs) can precisely guide surgical resection of GBM. Nevertheless, photomedical treatments like photodynamic therapy (PDT) show limited efficacies due to the low penetration of light into tissue. Proton radiotherapy can reach deep-lying disease through therapeutic energy deposition in a spatially confined region called Bragg peak. Current neutron-based therapies, like Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT), have sufficient penetration depth but lack cancer specificity.In NuCapCure, we propose to 'hijack' intracellular biosynthetic pathways and use them to produce custom-made drugs that will facilitate two genuinely new cancer treatments: i) ""NuCapCure Proton"", combining proton radiotherapy, protondynamic therapy through PS proton activation, and proton capture therapy (BPCT) through three produced alpha particles