Development stems from unique collaboration between cancer and defense scientists

October 31, 2005

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Researchers at UC Davis Cancer Center and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a promising new method of delivering targeted radiotherapy drugs to cancer patients. A report of their work appears in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for the week of Oct. 31-Nov. 4.

“Based on knowledge gained from antibody drugs currently in clinical use, we have engineered new cancer-targeting molecules that, when injected into the blood, not only bind to tumor cells but also efficiently 'catch' a subsequently given, small radioactive molecule, resulting in greatly enhanced tumor-targeted radiotherapy,” said Sally DeNardo, professor of hematology and oncology at UC Davis Cancer Center and an author of the new study. DeNardo's laboratory is an international leader in the field of radioimmunotherapy.

The UC Davis-Livermore team used atomic force microscopy to measure the binding forces between several single-chain antibody fragments and Mucin1 peptide. Mucin1 is commonly found in large quantities in a variety of epithelial cells in the human body; one of its specific forms is a marker for prostate, breast, colon, lung, gastric and pancreatic cancers.

“We found a very good way of quantifying drug-binding affinity, which determines the drug's efficiency,” said Aleksandr Noy, a researcher in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Chemical Biology and Nuclear Sciences Division. Noy and Todd Sulchek, a postdoctoral student in the division, are the lead authors of the new paper.

The Livermore-Davis team's results open significant new opportunities for researchers in areas ranging from drug design to biophysics.

“Not only does this technique aid doctors in delivering targeted drugs in cancer treatment, but it also may benefit the laboratory's efforts evaluating antibodies and designing better binding molecules for biosensors that play such a critical role in national security,” Noy said. “We developed a technique that could help to optimize binding affinity, so for this particular application we have looked at super-binders targeting cancer cells. If the program wants to create a super-binder for a pathogen assay, the technology and the results will be directly applicable.”

UC Davis Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center serving the Central Valley and inland Northern California. Its formal research partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the first collaboration of its kind, is turning defense technologies into a new cancer offense.