(Press-News.org) LA JOLLA, CA - Oncologists have long sought a powerful "magic bullet" that can find tumors wherever they hide in the body so that they can be imaged and then destroyed. Until recently scientists accepted the notion that such an agent, an agonist, needed to enter and accumulate in the cancerous cells to act. An international research team has now shown in cancer patients that an investigational agent that sticks onto the surface of tumor cells without triggering internalization, an antagonist, may be safer and even more effective than agonists.
One of the Salk Institute's leading researchers, Dr. Jean Rivier, professor in The Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology and holder of the Frederik Paulsen Chair in Neurosciences and his Swiss collaborator, Dr. Jean Claude Reubi, University of Berne and Adjunct Professor at Salk, co-authored a pilot study, published in the September issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, of five patients and demonstrated that their "antagonist", 111In-DOTA-BASS, outperformed the "agonist" agent, OctreoScan, that is widely used in the clinic to image neuroendocrine tumors bearing somatostatin receptors.
"This is the first proof of principle in humans that labeled peptide antagonists can effectively image tumors. Additional research suggests that we could one day use a different radioactive metal to effectively kill the tumors," said Dr. Rivier.
Dr. Reubi, a molecular pathologist, and Dr. Rivier, a chemist, collaborated in the design and selection of natIn-DOTA-BASS for human testing, and Dr. Helmut R. Maecke, a radio chemist, loaded DOTA-BASS with its radioactive marker and tested the compound before use in human. Afterward, the "first in man" study with the radioactive loaded DOTA-BASS was performed at the University Hospital in Freiburgby Drs. Damian Wild, Melpomeni Fani, Martin Behe, Ingo Brink, Helmut R. Maecke, and Wolfgang A. Weber.
The genesis of this study goes back to 1973, when a team of Salk researchers, which included Drs. Brazeau, Vale, Burgus, Rivier, and Roger Guillemin, a 1977 Nobel laureate, isolated and characterized somatostatin, a peptide produced by neuroendocrine glands. The scientists found that the normal function of somatostatin is to block the release of growth hormone throughout the body, which includes inhibiting the release of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) from the thyroid.
Drs. Rivier, Reubi and their colleagues from Germany showed that 111In-DOTA-BASS bound to a greater number of somatostatin receptors on cancer cells than the agonist OctreoScan, and that it did accumulate in normal tissue (liver and kidney) to a lesser extent.
The prototype antagonist therapy has been revamped, and the version studied in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine publication, 111In-DOTA-BASS, detected 25 of 28 metastatic neuroendocrine tumors in the patients, whereas OctreoScan detected only 17.
In-DOTA-BASS has been licensed to a pharmaceutical company for clinical trial development, according to Rivier, who adds that other researchers are exploring an antagonist approach for other G-protein coupled receptors that are abundantly expressed on cancer cells.
INFORMATION:
The study was funded in part by the Swiss National Science Foundation (JCR).
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DFW Elite Toy Museum is dog-friendly and we want all dog lovers to hold their clubs' social and fundraising events for breed rescue here at the museum. At DFW Elite Toy Museum, we know it's a dog's life.
Forth Worth entrepreneur and museum owner Ron Sturgeon is active in King Charles Cavalier spaniel rescue and recently hosted a social event at the antique toy museum for the Dallas-Fort Worth King Charles Cavalier Spaniel Club.
Members were encouraged to bring their fur-kids and enjoy the museum and a presentation by Kristy Remo of Kristy's Pampered Paws Mobile Pet ...
CLEMSON, S.C. — Celebrating the end to a successful peach season, Clemson University peach specialist Desmond Layne announced the naming of a new peach cultivar — CaroTiger. The fourth in the "Caro" — for South Carolina — series, this late-season peach will be available to growers in January 2013.
"Up until now, this peach just had a number — SC82035-13-48 — but it earned a name during our long-term germplasm evaluation research," said Layne. "We've been testing this particular selection at multiple locations for several years. Its performance has been excellent. The ...
COLUMBIA, Mo. –University of Missouri researchers have found evidence that shows those who quit smoking show improvements in their overall personality.
"The data indicate that for some young adults smoking is impulsive," said Andrew Littlefield, a doctoral student in the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Science. "That means that 18-year-olds are acting without a lot of forethought and favor immediate rewards over long term negative consequences. They might say, 'I know smoking is bad for me, but I'm going to do it anyway.' However, we find individuals ...
With more and more Americans upgrading to smartphones, and as smartphone capabilities continue to improve, even the U.S. government is considering innovative ways to harness this advancing technology. Human factors/ergonomics researchers have evaluated the potential benefits of using smartphones to enable online voting in future U.S. elections and will present their findings at the upcoming HFES 55th Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The 2000 presidential election debacle in Florida became a national embarrassment, prompting many U.S. election officials to opt for ...
Boston, MA - Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have identified a new combination of targeted therapies that, together, may treat two aggressive tumor types that until now have not had effective treatments. These findings are published in Cancer Cell on September 13, 2011.
While numerous anti-cancer drugs are being developed, many tumors do not respond to currently available single therapies. As such, there is a major push to identify new drug combinations that can work together to treat these resistant cancers . The drug combination identified by BWH ...
Using barley as the raw material for ethanol production results in an additional product – dried grains for animal feed. But the presence of a fungal pathogen sometimes found in barley can result in a lethal toxin, called mycotoxin, in the animal feed. Now, Virginia Tech and Agricultural Research Service, USDA researchers have shown that newly developed transgenic yeast used during fermentation will help modify the mycotoxin in the animal feed product to a less toxic form. The research is published online in the September issue of Biotechnology for Biofuels.
New varieties ...
You've just finished an amazing dinner at your favorite restaurant and you are ready to put on your comfy pajamas and slip into sweet slumber. You arrive at your doorstep and find the front door ajar. Your heart beats wildly in your chest and you peer in, only to discover that your house has been ransacked.
According to author Alexa Tullett, "There's more than one way to interpret this event. You could see it as an indication that there's a bad apple in your neighborhood, and in this case you would only feel comforted if that person was arrested. On the other hand, you ...
(Washington) –Recommendations to reduce federal health care spending in a socially and fiscally responsible manner today were made in a letter to the Congressional Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction from the American College of Physicians (ACP).
"On behalf of ACP's 132,000 members, ACP is pleased to offer the joint select committee a framework to achieve hundreds of billions of dollars in deficit reduction, eliminate the sustainable growth rate (SGR), and promote improved outcomes and quality." said Virginia L. Hood, MPPS, MPH, FACP, president of ACP.
The letter ...
It was recently announced that the Justice Department of the United States officially charged 91 persons for Medicare Fraud, which equated to $295 million of loses to the American taxpayer. The 91 people charged included doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals. The scheme was nationwide ranging over eight cities. The scheme was based on false billing. Attorney General Eric Holder led the efforts, stating that the persons charged were jeopardizing the integrity of our health care system and our nation's most critical health care programs for personal gain. The charges ...
Chicago – Many patients are responding to a new, minimally invasive way of treating irregular heartbeats by freezing out the bad cells. Atrial fibrillation (A-Fib) is one such heart rhythm disorder, and it's the most common arrhythmia affecting Americans. However, new research shows that 70 percent of patients with the disorder who were treated with cryoballoon ablation, the freezing technique, are free of any heart rhythm irregularities one year out from having the procedure. These results suggest that this minimally invasive procedure may be faster, safer and more effective ...
