|
When a person is diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer, one of the two primary types of lung cancer, there is a 70-80 per cent risk that cancer will acquire resistance to the initial medication therapy used to treat it after 14 months. If this occurs, there aren't many therapy choices right now. Researchers are on a mission to discover a solution.
The research was led by Raghuraman Kannan, Michael J. and Sharon R. Bukstein Chair in Cancer Research at the University of Missouri School of Medicine. "We want to find out why patients are becoming resistant to the therapeutic agent and determine how we can help them overcome that challenge," he said. Kannan and a team of researchers recently received a $2.35 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to generate preclinical data based on their existing research -- the required step before human clinical trials can begin. Previously, the team identified two genes involved in developing this drug resistance. Now, with the help of this grant, researchers will be able to test the approach they developed to prevent resistance. Kannan said their approach combines a biological process called RNA interference (RNAi) with protein-based nanoparticles. The nanoparticles will help safely deliver the RNA to the cancer tumor and cause the resistance to stop. This, in turn, will allow cancer to be more responsive to the efforts of the original drug therapy. "Through RNAi, we have something called a silencing RNA (siRNA)," he said. "As the name suggests, it silences the gene of interest, which in this case are the two genes causing this drug resistance. But siRNAs are inherently unstable in blood. So, we must develop a technology to deliver this siRNA to the [cancer] tumor. That's where the nanoparticle comes in." Kannan has created similar nanoparticle-based drug delivery methods to develop treatments for ovarian, breast, pancreatic and liver cancers. He has written more than 55 papers and holds seven patents. He said his ultimate goal is to make his work more accessible, so doctors can use it to help more patients. (ANI)
|
