Team creates light-activated therapy to target hard-to-treat cancer

(Press-News.org) University of Texas at Dallas bioengineers, in collaboration with UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers, are developing an enhanced light-activated immunotherapy approach that could one day treat patients with stomach cancer that has spread throughout the abdomen.

The approach uses lab-designed molecules and far-red or near-infrared light to “prime” the immune system to help it attack stubborn cancer cells, said Dr. Girgis Obaid, assistant professor of bioengineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science.

The lab-designed molecules, or betabodies, target only tumors, leaving healthy tissue unaffected to reduce side effects.

“When activated by light, our engineered proteins capture oxygen and convert it into reactive molecules that can kill cancer cells and simultaneously activate the immune system,” Obaid said. The approach has not yet been fully tested in humans.

Obaid received a $250,000 High Impact/High Risk Research Award in August from the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas to support the research to improve treatment for gastric peritoneal carcinomatosis in collaboration with Dr. Rolf Brekken, the Effie Marie Cain Research Scholar in Angiogenesis Research at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

“We are excited to participate in the development of this novel strategy for the treatment of recalcitrant tumors,” Brekken said.

Brekken and Obaid have designed novel engineered proteins that, when injected into a patient’s abdomen, are designed to bind to cancer cells. Then, a small fiber-optic light would apply near infrared light to activate the engineered proteins to block the cancer cells’ growth and trigger immune cells to destroy the cancer cells.

“We are combining the light-activated approach with the engineered protein technology, using both avenues to eliminate the tumor,” Obaid said.

The researchers said the approach potentially could work for a variety of types of tumors.

An estimated 26,890 people in the U.S. were diagnosed with stomach cancer, and 10,880 died of the disease in 2024, according to the National Cancer Institute.

For many patients, by the time stomach cancer is diagnosed, it has already spread, or metastasized, throughout the abdomen. Newer chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatments have made it possible for patients with advanced stomach cancer to live for an average of 10 to 17 months after diagnosis.

The UT Dallas and UT Southwestern researchers hope their enhanced therapy can improve patients’ prognoses.

“There is a dire need for treatments to help people with advanced stomach cancer live longer,” Obaid said. “If successful, our approach ultimately can help patients with stomach cancer live longer after the cancer has spread.”

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