Cancer is a leading cause of global mortality. Although bone cancers are less common than lung, breast, and prostate cancers, both primary malignant and metastatic bone tumours are serious concerns. Current treatments, involving chemotherapy, surgical resection, and systemic therapy, often lead to significant side effects, high recurrence rates, and challenging post-resection bone defects. To address these issues, there is growing advocacy for advanced bifunctional biomaterials that can promote bone regeneration while inhibiting tumor recurrence. Therefore, this PhD thesis explored various approaches for developing such bifunctional biomaterials. Specifically, this thesis focused on functionalizing commercially available bone substitute biomaterials with the established anticancer agent cisplatin, with a view to assessing these bifunctional biomaterials for their regenerative capacity in vivo and evaluating their anticancer efficacy via released cisplatin in both 2D and 3D culture conditions. Taken together, this work represents an important step towards translational and dual-functional biomaterials for bone tumour therapy.
Zhule Wang obtained his Master’s degree in Surgery at Sichuan University West China Hospital in 2018. In 2019 he started his PhD research in bone tumour therapies as part of the Dentistry - Regenerative Biomaterials Group at the Radboud University Medical Center. He will complete his orthopaedics residency in 2027 and will continue his work as a physician-scientist.