Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

The burden of cancer can be reduced by early detection and early treatment management of patients; in this regard nuclear imaging and therapy have made great contributions to clinical medicine particularly for diagnosis and have potential for much greater importance in therapy should the radioactivity be properly harnessed. Nuclear medicine requires injecting very small amounts of radioactivity attached to designer molecules that are transported specifically to the area physicians need to image or treat, resulting in low radiation doses for imaging, and minimal harm to surrounding healthy tissue for therapy. Depending on the radioactive decay emissions of a specific isotope, it can be used for diagnostic imaging, or delivery of radiation specifically to the tumour to destroy cancer cells. Unfortunately, the current technology needed to safely and properly incorporate these radioactive elements into a pharmaceutical in limited. The project objective is to develop novel technologies to harness radioactive metals for therapy and imaging of a variety of cancers. Our multidisciplinary team of experts from UBC, TRIUMF and the BC Cancer Agency, along with our industrial partner Nordion, will optimize the production of these radioisotopes, and enable technologies to securely attach the radioactive metal to a variety of "biomolecules" (molecules that are targeted specifically to specific proteins in cancer progression). By varying the radiometal, these radiopharmaceuticals can be used for both imaging and subsequent non-invasive targeted treatment of cancers. The developments made through this project will positively affect Canadians suffering with cancer. Personal health implications are significant with radioactivity as dose can be personalized easily by adjusting both the affinity of the binding interaction to the tumour and the radiation load of the final construct.