Following the discovery of a crucial biomarker of pancreatic cancer, a University researcher has received a $1.2-million grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop a screening technique for early detection of pancreatic cancer.
Kimberly Kelly, Medical School assistant professor of biomedical engineering, said she is currently conducting pre-clinical trials to develop imaging agents, or probes, to detect early cancer cells.
This work was made possible by her prior research in collaboration with Nabeel Bardeesy, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, Kelly said. Their research identified the biomarker — a protein on the surface of cells in early pancreatic cancers — and the peptide — or protein — sequence that recognizes the biomarker, Bardeesy said.
Having discovered the cell surface protein unique to the cancer cell, Kelly said they developed imaging agents that target the biomarker. The imaging agents were produced by hooking the peptide sequence to different molecules to be used for molecular imaging screening, Bardeesy said.
The current pre-clinical trials involve testing the isolated cells used to identify the biomarker in mass models of pancreatic cancer. These models — which, similar to the human disease, pass through multiple stages before metastasizing — have been implanted in mice.
“It [shows] promise that it will be effective in people,” Bardeesy said.
Despite the potential, Kelly cautioned that it almost certainly will be at least five years until the screening method can be used because it must pass through the pre-clinical trials, a small pilot clinical study followed by numerous clinical studies that would necessitate company funding, before finally being approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Bardeesy specified that to be approved, trials must demonstrate the imaging agent is still sensitive to detecting tumors in the human body, which might involve optimizing and tweaking the agent.
“[You have to] prove that you can actually improve patient outcome,” Bardeesy said.
Even once developed, Bardeesy said, the screening most likely would be used only on those predisposed to pancreatic cancer through various factors such as genetic mutations and chronic pancreatitis.
Because only 3 percent of the population develops pancreatic cancer, it would not be cost-effective to use this screening for the general population, Asst. Surgery Prof. Todd Bauer said.
“If this got approved tomorrow, that’s the population of patients we would be screening,” she said. “It’s not feasible to screen everybody. We’re not there yet.”
Bardeesy added that more widespread screening would require a cheap blood test with less technical equipment, an ideal that may also be advanced by their discovery of the biomarker.
At the moment, there is no method for the widespread early detection of pancreatic cancer, and instead, Kelly said, doctors only conduct the necessary tests once patients present symptoms. This is one of the main reasons pancreatic cancer is the fourth deadliest form of cancer, Kelly said; it is not typically detected until it has reached stage 4, at which point the chance of curative surgery is virtually non-existent. She said only 15 to 20 percent of pancreatic cancer patients are even eligible for surgery, and less than 5 percent of patients will survive five years, because chemotherapy is not effective if surgery is merely palliative.
“It’s a devastating disease,” she said. “The earlier it’s detected, the better the prognosis.”
In addition to aiding in the early detection of pancreatic cancer, Bauer said the molecular imaging could also detect metastatic spread where traditional scans may not, thus enabling doctors to customize treatment for each patient. He added that if the screening method proves accurate, the molecular imaging technique has promising implications for promoting research regarding early detection of other cancers.
“The more of these techniques we develop, the more that adds to the knowledge in the field and will help technology for other types of cancers,” Bauer said. “[It will] help advance the field.”
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