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A recent discovery by University of Maine Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering Michael Mason and his collaborators has the potential to improve early detection of different types of cancer.
The Maine Cancer Foundation awarded Mason and his chief collaborator, Peter Allen of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, nearly $78,300 for their project, titled “Improved Cancer Detection through the Use of Engineered Bioconjugates.”
“Now, with the funds provided by this grant, we can finetune our chemistry to generate a system that is the most biocompatible, generates the best signal and is the least invasive for the patient,” Mason said.
The project is for developing a new class of cancer-identifying agents to detect tumors in the pancreas and liver.
“We found a nanoparticle system comprised of very small particles of gold on the order of a billionth of a meter that very effectively scatter X-rays. These particles have the potential to be used as contrasting agents for X-ray imaging, which is a technique used to diagnostically find cancer,” Mason said.
In 2009, there have been an estimated 35,240 deaths due to pancreatic cancer and 42,470 new cases. Based on rates from 2004-2006, one in 72 men and women will be diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas during their lifetime, according to the National Cancer Institute.
“The project is a collaboration that really started from a clinical need,” Allen said.
These cancer-identifying agents are non-toxic and can seek out and attach to cancer cells that are difficult to distinguish from healthy tissue with imaging studies, such as MRI or CT scans. The agents generate strong X-ray signals that make cancer cells visible to doctors.
“Everybody and their sister is doing work with nanoparticles these days, from cosmetics to agriculture,” Allen said. “This is an application toward the medical field.”
The project is aimed toward early treatment of cancer, when it can be most effective.
The five-year relative pancreatic cancer survival rate for 1999 to 2005 was 5.5 percent, while the five-year survival rate for those diagnosed during the earliest stage of pancreatic cancer is more than 22 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute.
“[Tumors] aren’t easily identified in an image, and doctors don’t see them until they are really big — until they spread — and by that time, they are too late. So the idea is that we want these tumors to glow so that they stand out when there are fewer cells; so that it’s not too late for chemo or therapeutic treatments,” Mason said.
“Unlike existing contrasting agents made of iodine, gold can be made biocompatible, reducing the risk of patient reaction,” Mason said. “People get sick when they take iodine contrasting agents. These agents stay in your body for several days, allowing for higher resolution images of potential cancer sites.”
The project started three years ago when Allen showed Mason a chart which showed that 100 percent of all pancreatic cancer patients died within three years of being diagnosed.
“He described how miserable patients with pancreatic cancer are. They suffer horribly for the two or three years before they die. And most die within the first 16 months,” Mason said.
UMaine graduate student Gary Craig and five UMaine undergraduate students work on the project with Mason. A group at the University of Southern Maine, led by professor John Wise Sr., conducts the project’s toxicity trials.
“We do a lot of repetitive experiments, and then we take what we’ve created and we work with our collaborators and actually test what we create on animals, live tissue, stuff like that,” said Craig, who is studying for a doctorate in bio-inorganic materials and has been working on the project since it began.
All of the project’s animal trials and cancer imaging is done with clinical researchers and surgeons at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The direct connection with clinicians has benefited the research in several ways. Researchers have immediate access to cancer models, for example.
“It’s an effort where our expertise is in the care and treatment of the patients and we’ve combined this with Michael’s expertise, which is creating nanoparticles. So, several areas of expertise come together and allow us to come up with something none of us could have done on our own,” Allen said.
Mason and his collaborators have successfully tested the detection process in mice, but it will be a few years before doctors will use the technology to treat cancer.
“Cancer is a really nasty disease, and any little bit that we can do to improve cancer diagnostic can help on a lot of people,” Craig said. “It’s inspiring to know that what you are doing can have a great impact.”
