Title |
Therapeutically Exploiting a Newly Isolated Neural-Like Stem Cell Against GSB
|
Institution |
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES, NEW YORK, NY
|
Principal Investigator |
MINTZ, AKIVA
|
NCI Program Director |
Welch
|
Cancer Activity |
Biological Resources Branch
|
Division |
DCTD
|
Funded Amount |
$1
|
Project Dates |
09/01/2017 - 08/31/2021
|
Fiscal Year |
2017
|
Project Type |
Grant
|
Research Topics w/ Percent Relevance |
Cancer Types w/ Percent Relevance |
Cancer (100.0%)
|
Brain (100.0%)
|
Research Type |
Systemic Therapies - Discovery and Development
|
Abstract |
"DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): GBMs are rapidly fatal and kill close to 14,000 patients annually in the US alone. The goal of this proposal is to therapeutically exploit a newly isolated pure population of neural-like stem cells (NLSCs) that we recently derived from pericytes and can thus potentially be a source of autologous transplantation. The objectives of our application are to use an innovative remote-controllable stem cell-based platform to allow us to non-invasively activate NLSC production of a novel highly toxic targeted bacterial cytotoxin at the time and place of our choosing. The central hypothesis to be tested is that we can therapeutically exploit our NLSCs using image-guided HIFU in an innovative way to mildly heat tumor tissue at the depth of our choosing and induce a novel therapeutic production controlled by the heat shock protein 70 promoter (pHSP70). To test this hypothesis, 2 specific aims will be performed: (Specific Aim 1) To demonstrate tumor tropism and safety of peripherally isolated NLSCs. (Specific Aim 2) To demonstrate the feasibility of using image-guided HIFU remote activation to induce a TQM13-CTX, a novel targeted anti-GBM therapeutic that targets the tumor-restricted IL13R? Delivery of therapeutic agents specifically to tumor cells but not to the surrounding normal brain tissue using novel stem cell-based therapies offers hope against GBM, an invariably fatal disease. Thus, this proposal has strong translational relevance." |