New study shows potential to treat or prevent viral cancersJune 17, 2008New therapies may offer 'exquisite specificity,' according to researchers NEW ORLEANS, La.-A new study, presented at the SNM 55th Annual Meeting, shows that radioimmunotherapy (RIT) targeting viral antigens offers a novel option to treat-or even prevent-many viral cancers by targeting cancer cells expressing viral antigens or infected cells before they convert into malignancy. "There is an urgent need to find new approaches to treating and preventing viral cancers," said Ekaterina (Kate) Dadachova, associate professor of nuclear medicine and microbiology and immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, N.Y. and lead researcher of the study, Viral Antigens as Novel Targets for Radioimmunotherapy of Viral Cancers. "The magnitude and global health-burden associated with viral cancers is only now being realized."
It is estimated that up to 25 percent of all cancers are currently linked to existing viral infections. Most of these cancers are extremely difficult to treat and cannot successfully be reduced or removed using conventional therapies or treatments. Viral cancers include cervical cancers caused by infection with a human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted disease; hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a cancer of the liver; various lymphomas and carcomas in patients with AIDS/HIV; and other cancers. According to Dadachova, this is the first time that researchers have attempted to target viral antigens on cancers, although the use of RIT for the treatment of cancer has been under development for thirty years. However, the targets of RIT therapy to date have included only "self" human antigens, which are overexpressed on the tumors but also expressed on normal tissues. Viral antigens, on the contrary, are expressed only on the tumors and nowhere else in the body. The idea to perform the study was suggested by Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of the department of microbiology and immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, who collaborates with Dadachova on developing radioimmunotherapy of infectious diseases and cancers. The study involved treating experimental cervical cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma in nude mice with antibodies to respective viral antigens expressed on these tumors. The antibodies were radiolabeled with 188-Rhenium-a powerful beta-emitting radionuclide. "This study demonstrates a real possibility for more specifically targeted cancer treatments," said Dadachova. "Targeting those antigens with radiolabeled molecules offers exquisite specificity-and will hopefully allow us to significantly increase the efficacy of treatment by administering more individualized doses while avoiding toxicity." "Nuclear medicine and molecular imaging offer the ability to target disease on a truly molecular level that is unmatched by any other imaging or therapeutic modality," said Dadachova. "Targeting viral antigens with radiolabeled antibodies (or also with specific peptides or aptamers) will allow the extremely precise diagnosis of such cancers and their effective therapy. Furthermore, this approach will make possible 'molecular prevention' of viral cancers, when infected cells will be targeted before they become cancerous." Society of Nuclear Medicine | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Related Viral Antigens Current Events and Viral Antigens News Articles Einstein scientists treat cancer as an infectious disease -- with promising results Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have shown for the first time that cancers can be successfully treated by targeting the viruses that cause them. Cellular pathway yields potential new weapon in vaccine arsenal When a cell has to destroy any of its organelles or protein aggregates, it envelopes them in a membrane, forming an autophagosome, and then moves them to another compartment, the lysosome, for digestion. Two years ago, Rockefeller University assistant professor Christian Münz showed that this process, called autophagy, sensitizes cells for recognition by the immune system's helper T cells. Molecular switch may turn off immune cells that target HIV One of the primary mysteries of the AIDS epidemic - why the immune system is unable to control HIV infection - may have been solved by an international research collaborative. T cells activated to fight HIV basis for dendritic cell therapeutic vaccine Having their immune system cells go through a laboratory version of boot camp may help patients win their battle against HIV. Boosting newborns' immune responses Newborn babies have immature immune systems, making them highly vulnerable to severe infections and unable to mount an effective immune response to most vaccines, thereby frustrating efforts to protect them. New technique points to safer, more efficient vaccination Researchers have demonstrated a technique that has the potential to reduce the toxicity of vaccines and to make smaller doses more effective, according to a study published in PLoS Pathogens. Sounding the alarm for infections: EMBL researchers discover rapid-response, interferon-producing cells Nearly fifty years ago, researchers discovered that when cells in laboratory cultures are infected by a virus, they secrete a substance that protects other cells from infection. In 1957 Alick Issaks and Jean-Jacques Lindenmann traced this effect to a protein called interferon, a molecule now known to play a key role in the immune system. Human and animal cells produce it in a rapid "first wave" response to infections. Since its discovery, scientists have sought to use this natural substance to cure all sorts diseases, and clinical trials have demonstrated interferon's potential to combat diseases as different as hepatitis C, blood cancers, and multiple sclerosis. Yet many aspects of More Viral Antigens Current Events and Viral Antigens News Articles |
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