List of Abstracts 2025: PLENARY SESSION

Cancer continues to be a major health issue, with 20 million new cases diagnosed worldwide every year. In response, a wide variety of therapies have been developed, including Chemotherapy, Radiotherapy, Surgery, Immunotherapy, Precision Medicine and Hormone Therapy, among others. In spite of this, cancer continues to cause around 10 million deaths annually and this is expected to rise to 13 million by 2030.
Nanomedicine was expected to change radically this scenario, and indeed hundreds of novel nanoparticles (NPs) with exciting antitumor properties have been reported. However, 30 years after the first nano-enabled drug (DoxilTM) was approved in 1995, nanomedicine has not reached its expectations, largely due to a simple fact: less than 1% of the nanoparticles injected systemically reach the tumor. This causes two main problems. First, nanomedicines not reaching the tumor cause unwanted off target effects in other organs. Second, if the dose reaching the tumor is not sufficient, cancer cells survive and treatment resistances arise, leading to failure of therapy.
In our laboratory we aim to develop solutions to the above problems by i) developing catalysts and other therapeutic nanoparticles that provide new ways to fight cancer, from starvation therapy (targeting key tumor molecules such as glucose or key amino acids) to the in situ generation of toxic molecules (reactive oxygen species or prodrug activation using bio-orthogonal chemistry); and by ii) developing ways to deliver the catalyst selectively (or at least preferentially) to the tumor. This is also a formidable challenge, since current methods that rely on the EPR effect or even targeted delivery present a very low delivery efficiency. For this reason, we investigate so-called Trojan Horse delivery strategies, based on extracellular vesicles.
In this talk we will present some recent developments of our laboratory1-8 that create therapeutic opportunities using NPs capable of hyperthermia or of enabling catalytic therapies. Methods to load these particles in extracellular vesicles without disrupting their membrane properties will also be discussed.
REFERENCES: [1] Sancho-Albero et al. Nature Catalysis 2, 864-72, (2019); [2] Sancho-Albero et al. Nature Protocols 16, 131-63, (2021); [3] J.I. Garcia-Peiro et al. Angew. Chem. Int., e202424037, (2025); [4] J. Bonet-Aleta et al., Small, 2412355, (2025); [5] Sancho-Albero et al. J. Extracellular Vesicles 11:e12193 (2022); [6] Bonet-Aleta et al. Chemical Science, 13, 8307-20, (2022); [7] Rubio-Ruiz et al. Nano Letters, 23, 804-11, (2023); [8] Bonet-Aleta et al. Nano Letters, 24, 4091-4100, (2024).

Two-dimensional (2D) materials have garnered significant attention since the groundbreaking isolation of gra-phene in 2004, owing to their unique physicochemical properties and broad application potential. Beyond their roles in electronics and energy storage, emerging research highlights the promising use of 2D materi-als—such as graphene, transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), and hexagonal boron nitride—as innovative platforms for antimicrobial and anticancer therapies. Their high surface area, tunable reactivity, and ability to interact with biological systems at the molecular level make them ideal candidates for next-generation bio-medical applications.
However, the rapid development and increasing utilization of these materials call for a comprehensive as-sessment of their safety profiles, particularly in biological and environmental contexts. The Graphene Flagship project (2013-2023), played a pivotal role in evaluating the potential hazards associated with graphene-based and other 2D materials. It also addressed the structure-activity-relationship and explored green chemistry ap-proaches to ensure safe and sustainable production.
This talk synthesizes key findings and insights from the Graphene Flagship and beyond, with a particular focus on the biomedical potential of 2D materials and the critical steps needed to translate their capabilities into safe, effective clinical solutions.

By recording the radiation scattered by a laser-illuminated atomic force microscope tip, imaging and spectroscopy with nanoscale spatial resolution can be achieved in the broad spectral range from visible to infrared to terahertz frequencies [1]. This talk will discuss the basics of scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM) and its versatility through application examples, including nanoscale mapping of chemical composition, structural properties, and electrical conductivity.
[1] Hillenbrand, Abate, Liu, Chen, Basov, Visible-to-THz near-field nanoscopy, Nat. Rev. Matter. 10, 285 (2025)