Project 4: Carbon Nanotube-based Compact Microbeam Radiation Therapy For Human Brain Cancer. Project Leaders: Otto Zhou, PhD, Sha Chang, PhD and Joel Tepper, MD
Today, state-of-the-art radiotherapy provides excellent benefits for many patients with early stage and radiosensitive cancers. However, these benefits greatly diminish for patients with radioresistant tumors, such as brain or pancreas cancers. For these patients the
radiation needed to eradicate the tumor is so toxic that it can cause intolerable damage to normal tissues. An ultimate radiotherapy approach should have high tissue type selectivity to intrinsically eradicate tumor while leaving normal tissue function intact. Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) may be just such a radiotherapy approach. MRT is a novel approach that is distinctly different from all conventional forms of radiotherapy and has a signature high dosage, dose rate, and spatial distribution. Despite its enormous potential MRT has not been used on humans. There are two major bottlenecks in translating MRT from bench-side to bedside: 1) the lack of an understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms and 2) the lack of accessible MRT irradiation devices. There are only two synchrotron-based animal research MRT systems in the world, and no human MRT system exist.
Research Summary
In this project, we propose to develop a nanotechnology-enabled compact radiation device to translate a promising experimental radiotherapy treatment from animal research to widespread clinical application. Our goal is to develop a compact human MRT system for treatment of human brain tumors, especially glioblastoma (GBM). We hypothesize that MRT can eradicate GBM without severe normal brain tissue damage. Our approach is to utilize the CNT field emission based spatially distributed multi-beam field emission x-ray (MBFEX) technology that was pioneered by our team. Our preliminary studies have shown that it is possible to achieve the high dose rate and dose used by synchrotron MRT and the proposed MRT system is capable of generating the required microbeam spatial dose distribution in a human head phantom. The basic components of the proposed human MRT system design will be tested using a first-of-its-kind small animal nanotube-based MRT system, which is under construction with support from a 2-year NCI RC2 GO grant.
The objective of the present project is to: a) experimentally validate the normal tissue sparing and tumor eradicating effects of the small animal CNT MRT system; and b) to design, and experimentally validate different components of a human MRT system. Our target is to have a complete system design of the compact human MRT system ready for fabrication at the end of this project for clinical evaluation. Our team has a demonstrated track record of innovation and success in translational research and, more importantly, in moving new technologies from academic labs to the market place and back to the clinics.
radiation needed to eradicate the tumor is so toxic that it can cause intolerable damage to normal tissues. An ultimate radiotherapy approach should have high tissue type selectivity to intrinsically eradicate tumor while leaving normal tissue function intact. Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT) may be just such a radiotherapy approach. MRT is a novel approach that is distinctly different from all conventional forms of radiotherapy and has a signature high dosage, dose rate, and spatial distribution. Despite its enormous potential MRT has not been used on humans. There are two major bottlenecks in translating MRT from bench-side to bedside: 1) the lack of an understanding of the underlying biological mechanisms and 2) the lack of accessible MRT irradiation devices. There are only two synchrotron-based animal research MRT systems in the world, and no human MRT system exist.
Research Summary
In this project, we propose to develop a nanotechnology-enabled compact radiation device to translate a promising experimental radiotherapy treatment from animal research to widespread clinical application. Our goal is to develop a compact human MRT system for treatment of human brain tumors, especially glioblastoma (GBM). We hypothesize that MRT can eradicate GBM without severe normal brain tissue damage. Our approach is to utilize the CNT field emission based spatially distributed multi-beam field emission x-ray (MBFEX) technology that was pioneered by our team. Our preliminary studies have shown that it is possible to achieve the high dose rate and dose used by synchrotron MRT and the proposed MRT system is capable of generating the required microbeam spatial dose distribution in a human head phantom. The basic components of the proposed human MRT system design will be tested using a first-of-its-kind small animal nanotube-based MRT system, which is under construction with support from a 2-year NCI RC2 GO grant.
The objective of the present project is to: a) experimentally validate the normal tissue sparing and tumor eradicating effects of the small animal CNT MRT system; and b) to design, and experimentally validate different components of a human MRT system. Our target is to have a complete system design of the compact human MRT system ready for fabrication at the end of this project for clinical evaluation. Our team has a demonstrated track record of innovation and success in translational research and, more importantly, in moving new technologies from academic labs to the market place and back to the clinics.
Team Members
Joel E. Tepper, M.D.
The Hector McLean Distinguished Professor Of Cancer Research
Otto Zhou, Ph.D.
David Godschalk Professor Of Physics And Materials Sciences
Sha Chang, Ph.D.
Associate Professor Of Physics & Computing Division
Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 April 2011 14:48
