Novel Apoptosis Marker

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Overview Routine clinical use of PET is based on FDG, a glucose analogue. FDG measures viable cell metabolism. However it lacks specificity and FDG imaging often misses less glycolytic/aggressive tumours. Accordingly, there is a need for tracers targeting specific biological processes and molecular pathways. Effective anticancer therapy induces tumour cell death through apoptosis. Non-invasive monitoring of apoptosis during therapy may provide predictive outcome information and help tailor treatment. Since a majority of oncology therapies induce apoptosis it could be used as an early and specific signal of therapeutic efficacy. A team at Imperial College, led by Eric Aboagye, is validating a novel strategy for the detection of treatment efficacy with 18F-ICMT-11 PET in  dual clinical trials of breast and lung cancer. Technology Team demonstrated 18F-ICMT-11 is a sensitive marker of chemotherapyinduced cell death in preclinical models of lymphoma, breast and colon cancer. They also showed that apoptotic, but not necrotic response of NSCLC to platinum-based therapy is detectable by 18F-ICMT-11. These results establish 18F-ICMT-11 as a good pharmacodynamic marker of apoptosis and biomarker of efficacy even in the absence of tumour shrinkage. Development Stage The response marker is currently undergoing two clinical trials to test application for early detection of chemotherapy-induced apoptosis in treatment of breast and lung cancers.   Intellectual Property This technology is protected by patent in EU and US.