Modified chemotherapy agent improves PET scans

Modified chemotherapy agent improves PET scan functioning

UCLA researchers have made fundamental modifications to a very common chemotherapy drug and created a new probe for PET scans. This new technology will allow scientists to model and look at immune systems in action and visually interpret a patient's response to new therapies.

The molecule, named FAC, is based on the DNA Salvage Pathway, which is a recycling system that helps in the replication and repair of DNA strands. Since immune system responses activate the DNA salvage pathway at a high level, the FAC accumulates in higher levels in immune cells.

Treating cancer can be incredibly frustrating, since doctors must wait days or weeks before seeing the results of their treatments. Dr. Kevin Shannon, the Auerback Distinguished Professor of Molecular Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco, said:

"Dynamic probes like the one developed by UCLA scientists will allow researchers to learn more about the role of the immune response in cancer, how current treatments affect immune cells, and will allow them to quantitatively monitor responses to new modalities such as tumor vaccines," Shannon said. "Probes of this type may also help oncologists more rapidly identify tumors that will respond to certain drugs so treatments can be made more patient-specific."

"What we wanted to do was to develop new ways to look inside a living organism and gather as much information as we can about the immune system," said Caius Radu, an assistant professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and the first author of the study. "We wanted to know how cells move from one site in the body to another and find a way to trace them to tumors... This probe will tell us things about the immune system that existing probes can't," said Radu. This breakthrough will make tracking cancer treatment both simpler and more effective.

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