Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of Massachusetts Amherst have launched a collaborative project aimed at developing engineered Salmonella strains to address unmet needs in treating drug-resistant triple-negative breast cancer. The initiative, backed by a $13.1 million, five-year grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health, marks the first NIH funding of its kind dedicated to bacterial cancer therapies.
The grant is the first of its kind for bacteria cancer therapies awarded by the NIH. Dr. Sarah Cheal, an assistant professor of biological chemistry in radiology at Weill Cornell Medicine, will receive $2.7 million of the funding to use the Salmonella delivery system for radiopharmaceutical therapy.
Radiopharmaceutical therapy delivers radioactive metals directly to the tumor, causing less toxicity than traditional radiation. However, the issue is getting these radioactive metals to find the tumor. The Salmonella bacteria can carry substances that attract the radiopharmaceutical therapy, guiding it to the cancer-killing radioactivity.
This research effort also includes using genetically engineered Salmonella to “decorate” cancer with a COVID-derived protein, essentially tricking the immune system into recognizing and attacking a tumor. They are also building on previous research to kill cancer cells with viruses delivered by Salmonella instead of with drugs.
Dr. Cheal is working with several UMass Amherst investigators, including Dr. Neil Forbes, Dr. Lisa M. Minter, Dr. Lauren Andrews, Dr. Ashish Kulkarni, and Dr. Joseph Jerry. The team’s research aims to design nontoxic Salmonella strains that can deliver three treatment options and create a massive library of Salmonella genetics to enable the precise tailoring of the bacteria to serve as vehicles for different therapies.
The team will also design Salmonella to carry metals that emit non-damaging beta radiation, called positrons, that can be seen from a positron emission tomography, or PET, scan, which can be used for improved imaging. This development has the potential to provide new treatment options for patients with drug-resistant triple-negative breast cancers.
Leave a Reply