Current clinical chemotherapy still relies on methods that kill rapidly-dividing cells thus affecting many normal cells. If cancer cells could be targeted exclusively, we would have a much safer chemotherapeutic approach.
Solution
Because cancer cells are in a hypoxic microenvironment, they are selectively targeted by inhibitors of glycolysis. By combining these inhibitors with chemotherapy, this approach selectively targets only cancer cells and spares normal ones.
Cancer cells under normal oxygen conditions are rapidly dividing and require glucose not only for energy but also for supplying the backbone of the sugars and glycoproteins required for cell growth and division.
2-deoxyglucose has now been shown to be able to block the glucose building blocks required for the growth and division of the rapidly dividing portion of a tumor.
Competitive Advantage
(1) Although molecular biology allows targeting of cancer cells without harming normal cells, clinical chemotherapy still relies on methods that kill rapidly-dividing cells thus affecting many normal cells. The approach of this technology takes advantage of the fact that solid tumor cells are in a hypoxic microenvironment and selectively targets them without affecting normoxic cells.
(2) Since glucose has been shown to be selectively taken up more by tumor vs normal cells a natural therapeutic window exists that can be exploited using sugar analogs that interfere with various pathways of glucose metabolism that support tumor growth and survival.
(3) This biologic can be orally administered and is expected to be effective at low dosage.
Applications
Solid Tumors
This novel therapeutic treatment can be applied to inhibit tumor growth via inhibition of glycolysis, glycosylation and nucleotide sugars. In particular, it has been shown to kill hypoxic tumor cells via inhibition of glycolysis. This biologic can be used in the clinic by combining it with standard chemotherapy to increase efficacy by targeting hypoxic cells, and might also be used as single agent therapy.
Patent Status
International patent application WO2007100728 was published on September 7, 2007.
Licensing Opportunity
The University of Miami is seeking collaborative research and licensing options.
About the Inventors
Dr. Theodore J. Lampidis' primary work has been focused on the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for Multi-drug Resistance (the process and phenomenon by which tumors initially respond to chemotherapy but eventually become resistant to that therapy and to subsequent therapies). Dr. Lampidis has contributed many papers addressing this serious clinical obstacle in cancer treatment. He has been regularly awarded grants from the National Institutes of Health in the division of the National Cancer Institute, and has been an invited Speaker at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Institute (New York), Oxford University (Oxford England), Max Planck Institute (Munich Germany), MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston Texas), Harvard Medical School, (Boston) and numerous other prestigious Institutes. He has acted as a consultant for a number of drug companies, including Bristol Myers Squibb, Wyeth Ayerst, Guilford Pharmaceuticals, and most recently Threshold Pharmaceuticals. He received a five year award in 2001 from the National Cancer Institute on his latest work which involves a strategy for selectively killing the slow growing cells found in the inner core of solid tumors. If successful, his discoveries may increase the efficacy of many chemotherapeutic clinical protocols. The National Cancer Institute has stated that "Dr. Lampidis' work could eventually lead to cures in certain cancers."
