(Press-News.org) LOS ANGELES (May 26, 2015) - Biomedical researchers at Cedars-Sinai have invented a tiny drug-delivery system that can identify cancer cell types in the brain through "virtual biopsies" and then attack the molecular structure of the disease.
If laboratory research with mice is borne out in human studies, the results could be used to deliver nano-scale drugs that can distinguish and fight tumor cells in the brain without resorting to surgery.
"Our nanodrug can be engineered to carry a variety of drugs, proteins and genetic materials to attack tumors on several fronts from within the brain," said Julia Ljubimova, MD, PhD, professor of neurosurgery and biomedical sciences at Cedars-Sinai and a lead author of an article published online in the American Chemical Society's journal ACS Nano.
Ljubimova, director of the Nanomedicine Research Center in the Department of Neurosurgery and director of the Nanomedicine Program at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, has received a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue the research.
The drug delivery system and its component parts, together called a nanobioconjugate or nanodrug, is in an emerging class of molecular drugs designed to slow or stop cancers by blocking them in multiple ways within the brain. The drug is about 20 to 30 nanometers in size - a fraction of a human hair, which is 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers wide.
Cedars-Sinai scientists began developing the "platform" of the drug delivery system about a decade ago. The nanodrug can have a variety of chemical and biological "modules" attached.
"Each component serves a specialized function, such as seeking out cancer cells and binding to them, permeating the walls of blood vessels and tumor cells, or dismantling molecular mechanisms that promote tumor growth," said Eggehard Holler, PhD, professor of neurosurgery and director of nanodrug synthesis at Cedars-Sinai.
The new delivery system plays two roles: diagnosing brain tumors by identifying cells that have spread to the brain from other organs, and then fighting the cancer with precise, individualized tumor treatment.
Researchers can determine tumor type by attaching a tracer visible on an MRI. If the tracer accumulates in the tumor, it will be visible on MRI. With the cancer's molecular makeup identified through this virtual biopsy, researches can load the "delivery system" with cancer-targeting components that specifically attack the molecular structure.
To show that the virtual biopsies could distinguish one cancer cell type from another, the researchers devised what is believed to be a unique method, implanting different kinds of breast and lung cancers into laboratory mice to represent metastatic disease - with one type of cancer implanted on each side of the brain. Lung and breast cancers are those that most often spread to the brain.
The researchers used the nano delivery system to identify and attack the cancers. In each instance, animals that received treatment lived significantly longer than those in control groups.
"Several drugs are quite effective in treating different types of breast cancers, lung cancer, lymphoma and other cancers at their original sites, but they are ineffective against cancers that spread to the brain because they are not able to cross the blood-brain barrier that protects the brain from toxins in the blood," said Keith Black, MD, chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute, director of the Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., Brain Tumor Center and the Ruth and Lawrence Harvey Chair in Neuroscience.
"The nanodrug is engineered to cross this barrier with its payload intact, so drugs that are effective outside the brain may be effective inside as well," Black added.
INFORMATION:
Ljubimova, Black and Holler led the study and contributed equally to the article. Rameshwar Patil, PhD, a project scientist in Ljubimova's laboratory, is first author. Researchers from Cedars-Sinai's Department of Neurosurgery, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Department of Imaging, and the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute contributed to the study with colleagues from the University of Southern California and Arrogene Inc., a biotech company associated with Cedars-Sinai.
The study was supported by NIH grants U01 CA151815, R01 CA136841, R01 CA188743, and EY013431, Arrogene Inc. grants and Martz Translational Breast Cancer Research Fund. The new NIH National Cancer Institute grant, R01CA188743, will fund ongoing study.
Citation: "MRI Virtual Biopsy and Treatment of Brain Metastatic Tumors with Targeted Nanobioconjugates." Publication Date (Web): April 23, 2015. DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5b01872 END
Queen's University PhD student Matt Shultz is researching magnetic, massive stars, and his research has uncovered questions concerning the behaviour of plasma within their magnetospheres.
Drawing upon the extensive dataset assembled by the international Magnetism in Massive Stars (MiMeS) collaboration, led by Mr. Shultz's supervisor, Queen's professor Gregg Wade, along with some of his own observations collected with both the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, Mr. Shultz is conducting the first systematic population ...
Washington, D.C. -- May 26, 2015 -- A new study has demonstrated that a protein called Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1) is critical for the Ebola virus to infect a host. The study, published in the May/June issue of mBio, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, suggests that drugs that block NPC1 could be used to treat this deadly disease.
"The science behind the concept of blocking the interaction between NPC1 and the virus is solid. Now, it is just a matter of powering through and identifying drugs that can inhibit NPC1 and moving them forward," ...
An international team including scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) has identified the molecular "lock" that the deadly Ebola virus must pick to gain entry to cells. The findings, made in mice, suggest that drugs blocking entry to this lock could protect against Ebola infection. The study was published in today's edition of the online journal mBio.
The researchers found that the Ebola virus can't infect cells unless it first attaches to a host protein called ...
By unlocking the secrets of a bizarre virus that survives in nearly boiling acid, scientists at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have found a blueprint for battling human disease using DNA clad in near-indestructible armor.
"What's interesting and unusual is being able to see how proteins and DNA can be put together in a way that's absolutely stable under the harshest conditions imaginable," said Edward H. Egelman, PhD, of the UVA Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics. "We've discovered what appears to be a basic mechanism of resistance - to ...
Mitsuyoshi Nakao, Director of the Institute of Molecular Embryology and Genetics in Kumamoto University and Associate Professor Noriko Saitoh revealed that a cluster of defined, non-coding RNAs are mechanistically involved in endocrine therapy resistance in human breast cancer cells. Furthermore, resveratrol, a kind of polyphenol, was found to repress these RNAs and inhibit the proliferative activity of breast cancer cells which had acquired resistance. The work was published in Nature Communications on April 29th, 2015.
Breast cancer is one of the most common types ...
This news release is available in French.
Commuting length, distance, and means are stress factors that can lead to burnout, says Annie Barreck of the University of Montreal's School of Industrial Relations. "A correlation exists between commuting stress factors and the likelihood of suffering from burnout. But their importance varies according to the individual, the conditions in which their trips take place, and the place where the individual works," she explained. Barreck will present her research today at the 83rd congress of the Association francophone pour ...
In a new national survey of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients, Health Union found a severe impact on quality of life, employment, and ability to afford treatment. The autoimmune condition attacks the body, resulting in joint inflammation, pain, stiffness, and swelling, but may also harm other organs. About 1.3 million Americans or about one percent of the global population have RA.
Ninety-four percent of respondents with RA said they cannot do as much as they were able before acquiring the disease. Additionally, 67% said others do not understand the severity of their ...
Protected areas are the cornerstone to prevent species extinctions. The Convention on Biological Diversity have set a target to protect 17% of all terrestrial land by 2020.
Many of the international recommendations concerning protection goals are provided for single countries to take action individually. Researchers in the University of Helsinki, Finland, stress the importance of international collaborations in the protected area expansion process.
"It has been shown that working at the country level is less efficient than promoting transnational collaborations. As ...
New UK research has challenged the assumption that people with rheumatoid arthritis always take their medication as prescribed.
Researchers from the Arthritis Research UK Centre for Epidemiology at The University of Manchester found that 40% of patients scored low on an adherence questionnaire at least once during their time in a recent study, indicating that they might not be taking their expensive biological therapies as regularly as prescribed.
Their research is published online in the journal Rheumatology.
The findings have prompted Arthritis Research UK's head ...
Cough treatments could change dramatically after the herpes virus helped researchers discover that the respiratory tract links to two different parts of the nervous system.
A research team led by The University of Queensland's Dr Stuart Mazzone made the important breakthrough after setting out to learn more about the triggers behind excessive coughing.
"Different physical sensations arise from the upper and lower respiratory tracts in people with respiratory diseases," said Dr Mazzone, from the School of Biomedical Sciences.
"The irritating sensations from the upper ...
