Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer. Topical treatment by applying creams on the cancerous skin is the most gentle choice especially in the facial area where we want to avoid surgical scars. I propose a new strategy where specific antibiotics increase the efficiency of topical anticancer drugs. The selected antibiotics change structure and fluidity of the membranes of bacteria. Here, I use these antibiotics to change structure and fluidity of cancer cell membranes. The anticancer drugs can be more effectively transported into the cancer cells, which leads to enhanced efficiency of anticancer creams in clinical use.

Manual percutaneous insertion of rigid and unactuated probes are commonly used during minimally invasive surgery (MIS) for delivering diagnostic agents and performing therapeutic interventions. These probes often deviate from their intended paths due to tissue deformation and physiological processes. Inaccurate probe placement may lead to misdiagnosis, ineffective therapy, or traumatic effects due to medical complications. The ability to accurately steer the probe close to the organ would permit a gamut of novel diagnostic and therapeutic options, including on-site pathology and targeted drug delivery. Such an advance would truly revolutionize MIS. Thus, the goal of SAMURAI is to design a robotic system to steer magnetically-actuated flexible probes using ultrasound (US) images for accurate feedback, and thereby enable precise delivery of agents to a designated target. There are several challenges: 3D models describing the evolving probe shape are not available, while the real-time control of flexible probes using 3D US images and magnetic fields has not been demonstrated. These challenges will be overcome by using non-invasively (via US) acquired tissue properties to develop patient-specific biomechanical models that predict probe paths for pre-operative plans. Intra-operative control of flexible probes with actuated tips will be accomplished by integrating plans with data from US images and optical sensors. Ultrafast US tracking methods will be coupled to an electromagnetic system to robustly control the probe. A prototype will be evaluated in clinically relevant scenarios with realistic physiological functionalities. SAMURAI involves clinical, research, and industrial collaborations (e.g., UMCG, UNC Chapel Hill (USA), KIT (Germany), DEAM, IMDS, Technobis, and Siemens). The knowledge gained will be applicable to a range of flexible instruments, and to an assortment of personalized treatment scenarios. This research is strongly motivated by the existing need to further reduce the invasiveness of MIS, improve clinical outcomes, minimize patient trauma, and enable treatment of inoperable patients.

Magnetic resonance signals are inherently small and difficult to detect. To detect such small signals with good resolution, high field gradients or magnetic fields are necessary which requires expensive and bulky instruments. But even then required sample volumes and/or measurement times remain substantial. Recently, a state-of-the-art approach was developed that tackles all of these drawbacks. The method utilizes a diamond defect which can transform the small magnetic resonance signal of molecules in the surrounding into an optical signal. These optical signals can be detected with a sensitive microscope. Based on this principle, I want to develop a spectrometer that can detect magnetic resonances from nanoliters of sample within microseconds, which would vastly expand the current possibilities. To achieve this goal I would like to use an approach, which has been patented by my team. Part 1 of this Vidi-project aims to further optimize the spectrometer. Next, I will explore its applications and use the new spectrometer to approach two questions that cannot be resolved with the classical methods. Thus, in part 2a I focus on radical scavenging: How and when do drugs or nutrients scavenge radicals and how can I influence that process?. In part 2b I will follow chemical reactions during the synthesis of drugs, including their intermediate products. This should provide a platform for high-speed screening of drug candidates in the drug discovery field and potentially aid drug synthesis and process control.