Congratulations to Sarah M. Cheal, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry in Radiology and head of the Molecular Imaging Innovation Institute’s Sarah M. Cheal Laboratory, on her recent $434,903 R21 grant, “An engineered bacterial reporter gene fusion for radiotheranostics.”
Despite significant advances in immunotherapy, radiation therapy, precision medicine, and nuclear medicine, most advanced solid tumors remain incurable. Radiotheranostic therapies, while offering the advantages of precision medicine and patient-specific treatment selection, only achieve objective responses in 30 to 60% of patients. This means that major radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT) innovations are vital to overcoming suboptimal drug delivery and inadequate target-site radionuclide retention — the main challenges of consistent tumor control.
In cancer treatment, RPT can be administered as an unconjugated or chelated radionuclide or combined with a delivery vehicle, such as a peptide or antibody (radioimmunotherapy). This project aims to develop a versatile RPT platform that utilizes engineered bacteria to concentrate therapeutic radionuclides within tumors.