Researchers at the NCI Laboratory of Molecular Theranostics and the Molecular Imaging Program have developed a new method to modify, isolate and remove a single chemically-labeled molecule or a cluster of proteins associated with the chemically-labeled protein. The chemical label can be an antigen-antibody complex. This discovery is based on the mechanism of photo-immunotherapy (PIT).
Over the past decades, taxanes such as paclitaxel and docetaxel have emerged as effective chemotherapy agents for breast cancer and other malignancies. Taxanes are effective in many patients, however, not all patients benefit from this type of chemotherapy. A significant need remains for a means of predicting clinical outcome from taxane-based chemotherapy.
CD19 and CD20 are promising targets for the treatment of B-Cell malignancies. Unfortunately, some clinical studies have shown that there is a loss of CD19 or CD20 expression in various cases of lymphomas and leukemias, particularly after treatment with an agent that targets CD19 (e.g., anti-CD19 CAR-T). However, studies have shown that expression of one protein is retained when the other is lost. This suggests that a therapeutic with the ability to simultaneously target both CD19 and CD20 could represent a solution to the drawbacks of current therapies.
Optical traps (optical tweezers) have a focused laser beam able to trap a small bead at its focus, and are used to measure the microrheology of gels and other materials. They have recently been used to characterize properties of living cells, however issues of image spatial resolution and limited depth of interrogation have prevented application of an optical trap to measure microrheological (flow of matter) properties in complex (non-uniform) materials, such as multi-cellular systems or living organisms.