Novel Methods for Imaging PET Biomarkers and Gene Therapy of Cancer.

摘要

Cancer mortality in the USA ranks Tennessee number 43 in incidence and 5th in the nation in mortality both numbers suggesting much work to be done. Altogether, there are over 660,000 citizens with active military or veteran status in our state constituting over 15% of the general population. Therefore, the poor cancer mortality statistics negatively affects not only the state's general population but also military and veteran families living in the state. A self-evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of our state-wide University of Tennessee Cancer Institute programs revealed two major weaknesses impairing progress toward advancing translational research into the detection and treatment of cancer patients in Tennessee. Both are deficiencies in infrastructure: the first, is the lack of a core diagnostic and prognostic imaging facility and the second, is the lack of a core facility for investigational and therapeutic viral vector production and development. In this award we set forth the objectives to set up two core facilities at the University of Tennessee Cancer Institute: One for the generation of PET biomarkers using microfluidic chemistry and validate their effectiveness for PET/CT-based monitoring of conventional and novel anticancer therapy in animal models; The other a viral vector core for the generation of investigational tools for anticancer therapies at UT Health Science Center Memphis. These cores laboratories have been set and we successfully completed a pilot project that involved the generation of B16/F10 melanoma cells modified by lentivirus-mediated gene therapy and the in vivo PET imaging of the tumor-bearing mice.