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Johns Hopkins Medicine Lab Awarded $15 Million To Study Targeted Radiation For Treatment-Resistant Cancers

The Radiopharmaceutical Therapy and Dosimetry Lab at Johns Hopkins Medicine, headed by George Sgouros, Ph.D., has been awarded a $15 million grant, to be dispersed over the next five years, from the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health. They will use these funds to investigate a type of radiation therapy for hard-to-treat cancers.

The award will fund several research projects, all of which will investigate a promising cancer treatment known as alpha-particle emitter radiopharmaceutical therapy, or alpha-emitter RPT. This therapy has proved successful in treating widespread, treatment-resistant cancers through directly delivering radiation to cancer cells.

Administered into the bloodstream, alpha-emitter RPT treatment delivers highly potent radiation directly to cancer cells. Radioactive atoms that emit alpha-particles (helium nuclei) are attached to special molecules that target, or latch on to, dispersed cancer cells in the body. Alpha-particles delivered to cancer cells cause massive DNA damage that kills the cancer. Alpha-emitter RPT also limits the amount of damage to normal tissues surrounding the cancer, which can prevent some of the debilitating side effects patients with cancer may face with radiation and chemotherapy.

Sgouros, who has investigated this particular treatment his entire career, has previously demonstrated that this therapy is highly effective in targeting a variety of metastatic cancers that do not respond to traditional radiation and chemotherapy.

Within the last decade, several agents that use this approach of delivering radiation therapies that target treatment-resistant cancer have been approved by the FDA, and Sgouros explains that the need to improve delivery of these treatments and investigate additional specific radiation treatments is growing.

"The study of these types of radiation treatments is a very active field that is also very niche," says Sgouros, director of the radiological physics division and professor of radiology and radiological science at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "It is a unique area of study because a multidisciplinary team is needed to fully optimize such therapies, everything from physics, radiochemistry, biology and pharmacokinetics impacts this treatment approach."

Now, with the $15 million award, Sgouros and a diverse set of researchers in the lab will work to hone alpha-emitter RPT and optimize its application. This includes developing approaches to imaging and understand how the radiation is deposited in tissues so that treatment can be tailored to individual patients. Sgouros and his assembled team will specifically focus on the mathematical and physics-based components of alpha-emitter RPT to address these issues.

"We received this grant because we're the group that can solve these problems," says Sgouros. "This award is a testament to the collective expertise we have here at Hopkins, and what we've proposed to do with this grant can only be done with the group of investigators we have assembled here."

Health Beat: Beating Late-stage Cancer With Targeted Radiotherapy

More than half of all cancer patients get radiation therapy.

It's effective, but doctors are constantly improving it.

This year, more than 650,000 people in the United States will receive radiation to try to wipe out cancer. Now, a new radiation therapy is turning cancer against itself.

This year, 230,000 men and women in the U.S. Will be diagnosed with lung cancer. About 400,000 will be diagnosed with bone cancer.

"Metastatic lung or bone disease, we're usually talking about stage four cancer at that point," says Terrence Williams, M.D., Radiation Oncologist at the City of Hope. 

For late-stage malignant bone and lung cancers, survival is measured in months, not years. But now, a new type of targeted radiotherapy is turning cancer cells against themselves.

"One therapeutic option that is emerging now is something called biology guided radiation therapy," continued Williams. 

Radiation oncologists at the City of Hope are some of the first to use the reflection x one linear accelerator. It's the world's first real-time linear accelerator to help visualize the cancer.

"Real-time pet guided radiation therapy is utilizing the positron emission that comes from the tumor to triangulate where the tumor is in the body and immediately target radiation back to the tumor," Williams continued. 

The reflection x one can see precisely where to aim the beams of radiation, even when the tumor is moving. This decreases the risk of damaging healthy cells during radiation, giving doctors and their patients another tool to help track down cancer and destroy it.

Earlier this year, the reflexion received clearance from the FDA to treat primary or metastatic lung and bone cancer tumors.

Radiation Therapy Turns Cancer Against Itself

Radiation is one of the key treatments in the fight against all forms of cancer. In fact, more than 50% of all cancer patients receive radiation therapy.

That means this year alone, more than 650,000 people in the U.S. Will receive radiation to try and wipe out their disease.

But now, a new radiation therapy is turning cancer against itself.

This year, 230,000 men and women in the U.S. Will be diagnosed with lung cancer. According to the American Cancer Society, about 400,000 will be diagnosed with bone cancer.

"Metastatic lung or bone disease, we're usually talking about stage four cancer at that point," said Dr. Terrence Williams, radiation oncologist.

For late-stage malignant bone and lung cancers, survival is measured in months, not years, but now, a new type of targeted radiotherapy is turning cancer cells against themselves.

"One therapeutic option that is emerging now is something called biology-guided radiation therapy," Williams said.

Radiation oncologists at the City of Hope are among the first to use the reflection x one linear accelerator. It's the world's first real-time linear accelerator to help visualize the cancer.

"Real-time pet-guided radiation therapy is utilizing the positron emission that comes from the tumor to triangulate where the tumor is in the body and immediately target radiation back to the tumor," Williams said.

The reflection x one can see precisely where to aim the radiation beams, even when the tumor is moving. This decreases the risk of damaging healthy cells during radiation, giving doctors and their patients another tool to help track down cancer and destroy it.

Earlier this year, the reflection x one received clearance from the FDA to treat primary or metastatic lung and bone cancer tumors.

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