Innovative cancer diagnosis and treatment discoveries NCKU and NRC

A Taiwanese research team under the leadership of Prof. Dar-Bin Shieh of Institute of oral medicine at the Medical College at National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) has partnered with a research group led by Dr. Dennis Whitefield of National Research Council (NRC) of Canada for the development of innovative cancer diagnostic and treatment technologies.

According to Prof. Dar-Bin Shieh, the transnational team, consisting of 7 teachers of universities and the Academia Sinica in Taiwan and 4 scientists from National Research Council of Canada exists for almost 6 years the research project participated.

Compared to traditional nano-contrast agents that only about of the tumor location display, an enhanced nano-contrast agent developed in the first 3 years of the project can correctly cancer cells by means of x-ray computed tomography and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging to find and reveal the genetic expression profiles of the cancer cells.

This performance research is published in an Edition 2010 of internationally renowned magazine of the American Chemical Society (JACS) as the cover story.

In addition, the transnational team verified that the single-domain antibodies of Lama in South America could a new weapon to fight against cancer cells. The antibody is only 1/10 of an ordinary human IgG and is highly resistant to extreme environment in temperature and pH, and can spontaneously refold back to functional conformation after recovering from the harsh environment.

The team implements the production of the antibody against virus that bacteria eat and use the virus platform to the screen several single-domain antibodies with different binding profiles and functional impact to the target-cancer cells and reinforce the desired groups of antibody. The system can therefore support further industrial scale production of therapeutics on low cost and high efficiency.

The repeated screening and quantitative analysis, the team discovered a class of single domain antibodies targeting a specific cancer cell membrane glycoprotein that inhibit their growth simultaneously, neoangiogenic activity, metastasis and tumor micro environment modulation in the two cancer models tested, the pancreatic cancer and cancer of the breast.

This finding of potential clinical value in the future cancer diagnosis and treatment is currently undergoing a patent application and preparation for subsequent publication. The team will the antibody of one domain by multidisciplinary approaches and optimize the therapeutic effect to continue to improve.

"I think the integration of nano-contrast agents and single domain antibodies will lead to faster and more effective cancer treatment methods in the future," says Prof. Dar-Bin Shieh.

Source:
National Cheng Kung University