Novel apoptosis marker

Reference number 4277

Sectors: Biotechnology

Industries: Therapeutics

A novel tracer, 18F-ICMT-11, targeting specific biological processes to improve detection of tumours that are often missed by FDG PET imaging.

Proposed use

18F-ICMT-11 PET imaging can sensitively detect apoptosis, a marker for efficacy in chemotherapy.

Problem addressed

Routine clinical use of PET is based on FDG, a glucose analogue. FDG measures viable cell metabolism. However it lacks specificity and FDG imaging often misses less glycolytic/aggressive tumours. Accordingly, there is a need for tracers targeting specific biological processes and molecular pathways.

Effective anticancer therapy induces tumour cell death through apoptosis. Non-invasive monitoring of apoptosis during therapy may provide predictive outcome information and help tailor treatment. Since a majority of oncology therapies induce apoptosis it could be used as an early and specific signal of therapeutic efficacy.

Technology overview

A team at Imperial College London, led by Eric Aboagye, has developed a novel strategy for the detection of treatment efficacy with 18F-ICMT-11 PET in preclinical models of non-small cell lung carcinoma

The team demonstrated 18F-ICMT-11 is a sensitive marker of chemotherapy-induced cell death in preclinical models of lymphoma, breast and colon cancer. They also showed that apoptotic, but not necrotic response of NSCLC to platinum-based therapy is detectable by 18F-ICMT-11, through sub-nanomolar binding to caspase-3.

18F-ICMT-11 PET has been demostrated to be safe in human patients with a dosimetry profile comparable to other 18F PET tracers.

These results establish 18F-ICMT-11 as a good pharmacodynamic marker of apoptosis and biomarker of efficacy even in the absence of tumour shrinkage.

Benefits

  • Sensitive marker of chemotherapy-induced cell death
  • Safe and well-tolerated in humans
  • Discriminates between apoptosis and necrotic response to platinum-based chemotherapy

Intellectual property information

The technology is protected by a granted patents in the EU and US

WO2010026388A1

Contact

Dr Rachel Spruce

Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation Executive, Medicine

Rachel is Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation Officer for the Faculty of Medicine.

Contact Rachel

[email protected]

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