PASADENA,
Calif., Oct. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Jim Heath wants to
catch cancer earlier and provide more effective monitoring
of patients' responses to therapies. The National
Cancer Institute (NCI) likes his plan and just awarded
him $3.6 million to get started. The first year award
from NCI is tentatively expected to continue at the
same level for the next five years totaling $18 million.
Heath, the Elizabeth Gilloon Professor and professor
of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology,
will direct the Nanosystems Biology Cancer Center
at Caltech (NSBCC). This center will focus on the
development and validation of tools for early detection
and stratification of cancer through rapid and quantitative
measurement of panels of serum and tissue-based biomarkers.
The new center establishes a collaborative team
comprising investigators from Caltech, the Institute
for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle, and UCLA's
Institute for Molecular Medicine and Jonnson Comprehensive
Cancer Center. Former Caltech professor and ISB founder
Lee Hood is a co-Director of the NSBCC, and Michael
Phelps, Norton Simon Professor and Chair of the UCLA
Molecular & Medical Pharmacology Department,
is also a co-Director.
The grant is part of an overall effort by the National
Cancer Institute (NCI), which is part of the National
Institutes of Health, to establish seven Centers
of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNEs). The
centers were announced today by the NCI as a major
component of its $144.3 million five- year initiative
for nanotechnology in cancer research. First year
awards totaling $26.3 million will help establish
the centers.
The focus of the Caltech center will be to develop
and validate tools for the early detection and stratification
of cancer through rapid and quantitative measurements
of panels of serum and tissue-based biomarkers, and
to also use those tools to evaluate the efficacy
of various cancer therapies. In addition to general
oncology applications, this CCNE will focus on prostate
and ovarian cancer, glioblastoma and melanoma. During
the course of the projects that this CCNE will conduct,
investigators will develop:
* Nanotechnology and microfluidics-based
chips for profiling various cancers through serum analysis.
The goal is to use a fingerprick of blood as a diagnostic
window into health and disease by detecting a panel
of serum-based proteins that reflect the onset, progression,
and therapeutic responses of cancer. * Chip-based tools
for isolating rare circulating white blood cells as
a means of understanding how to better harness a patient's
own immune system for fighting off cancer. * Identification
of biomarkers that are indicators of the health status
of specific organs, such as the prostate or ovaries,
and are secreted into the blood. Such biomarkers are
then detected using the nanotech-based chips for achieving
an informative diagnosis of various cancers through
serum analysis. * Technologies for visualizing cancer
in patients (and thus directing therapies) through
the use of in vivo molecular imaging. Highly targeted
molecular imaging probes, prepared using "click" chemistry
approaches, will be developed. * The development of
high-throughput nanofabrication methods for constructing
the low-cost diagnostic chip-based devices. "The clinical treatment of cancer will undergo profound change over the next
10-15 years," said Heath. "This change will be catalyzed by a systems biology
approach toward understanding the disease, and by microfluidics and nanotechnologies
that can translate that approach into clinically useful tools. These advances
will allow for an early and informative diagnosis of cancer through in vitro
diagnostics and in vivo molecular imaging of patients. These new technologies
will guide drug discovery and treatment selection on an individualized basis,
providing the right drug for the right patient. The goal of the NSBCC is to
serve as the agent of that change by developing the core technologies for achieving
this vision, and by catalyzing the commercialization of those technologies.
The combination of nanotechnologies from Caltech, proteomics, genomics, and
computational biology from the Institute for Systems Biology, and the molecular
imaging, cancer biology and clinical cancer programs from UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive
Cancer Center provide the cross-disciplinary basic and clinical science expertise
committed to realizing this vision."
"We believe that nanotechnology will have a transformative effect on cancer
diagnosis and treatment. In fact its impact is already visible in the research
being conducted through many of the centers we are announcing today," said
Andrew von Eschenbach, M.D., director of the National Cancer Institute. "Through
the applications of nanotechnology, we will increase the rate of progress towards
eliminating the suffering and death due to cancer."
Nanotechnology, the development and engineering of devices so small that they
are measured on a molecular scale, has demonstrated promising results in cancer
research and treatment. NCI launched the plan to create the NCI Alliance for
Nanotechnology in Cancer in September 2004, as a comprehensive, integrated
initiative to develop and translate cancer-related nanotechnology research
into clinical practice.
NCI's Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer encompasses four major program
components, including the CCNEs. CCNEs are multi-institutional hubs, which
will focus on integrating nanotechnology into basic and applied cancer research
and providing new solutions for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Each of the CCNE awardees is associated with one or more NCI-designated cancer
centers, affiliated with schools of engineering and physical sciences, and
partnered with not-for-profit organizations and/or private sector firms, with
the specific intent of advancing the technologies being developed.
Similar centers will be established by University of North Carolina, UC San
Diego, Emory-Georgia Tech, MIT-Harvard, Northwestern University, and Washington
University in St. Louis, Mo.
Visit the Caltech Media Relations Web site at: http://pr.caltech.edu/media
Source: California Institute of Technology
CONTACT: Jill Perry, Media Relations Director, of Caltech,
+1-626-395-3226, jperry@caltech.edu ;
Travis Earles, Office of the Director, of
the National Cancer Institute, +1-301-435-8437, earlestr@mail.nih.gov ;
Ann
Benner, Office of Communications, of National Cancer Institute,
+1-301-402-6102, bennera@mail.nih.gov ;
Marcia Kean, +1-617-761-6728,
marcia.kean@fkhealth.com ,
or Jennifer Cosenza, +1-617-761-6750,
jennifer.cosenza@fkhealth.com ,
both of Feinstein Kean Healthcare
Web site: http://pr.caltech.edu/media
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