Theranostic Vectors to Treat Cancer with Radiometals

通过对患者的早期发现和早期治疗可以减轻癌症的负担；在这方面，核成像和治疗对临床医学特别是诊断做出了巨大贡献，并有可能在治疗中发挥更大的作用，如果放射性得到适当治理的话。核医学需要注入极少量的放射性，这些放射性附着在专门运输到医生需要成像或治疗的区域的设计分子上，导致成像的辐射剂量较低，对周围健康组织的治疗伤害最小。依赖于特定同位素的放射性衰变发射，它可以用于诊断成像，或传递专门针对肿瘤的辐射来摧毁癌细胞。不幸的是，目前的技术需要安全和适当地将这些放射性元素结合到一种药物中，这是有限的。该项目的目标是开发新技术，利用放射性金属对各种癌症进行治疗和成像。我们来自UBC、TRIUMF和BC癌症机构的多学科专家团队，以及我们的工业合作伙伴Nordion，将优化这些放射性同位素的生产，并使各种技术能够将放射性金属安全地附着在各种“生物分子”(针对癌症进展中的特定蛋白质的分子)上。通过改变放射性金属，这些放射性药物可以用于癌症的成像和随后的非侵入性靶向治疗。通过该项目取得的进展将对加拿大癌症患者产生积极影响。放射性对个人健康的影响很大，因为通过调整结合作用与肿瘤的亲和力和最终结构的辐射负荷，剂量可以很容易地个性化。

The burden of cancer can be reduced by early detection and early treatment management of patients; in this regard nuclearimaging and therapy have made great contributions to clinical medicine particularly for diagnosis and have potential for muchgreater importance in therapy should the radioactivity be properly harnessed. Nuclear medicine requires injecting very smallamounts of radioactivity attached to designer molecules that are transported specifically to the area physicians need toimage 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 ofradiation specifically to the tumour to destroy cancer cells. Unfortunately, the current technology needed to safely andproperly incorporate these radioactive elements into a pharmaceutical in limited. The project objective is to develop noveltechnologies to harness radioactive metals for therapy and imaging of a variety of cancers. Our multidisciplinary team ofexperts from UBC, TRIUMF and the BC Cancer Agency, along with our industrial partner Nordion, will optimize theproduction 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 theradiometal, these radiopharmaceuticals can be used for both imaging and subsequent non-invasive targeted treatment ofcancers. The developments made through this project will positively affect Canadians suffering with cancer. Personal healthimplications are significant with radioactivity as dose can be personalized easily by adjusting both the affinity of the bindinginteraction to the tumour and the radiation load of the final construct.