Breast Cancer Startup Challenge Inventions and Winners

March 5, 2014, 1:00PM

By Anthony Beal

Posted in: cancer

The Avon Foundation for Women, in partnership with NCI and the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI), have announced the ten winners of a world-wide competition to accelerate the process of bringing emerging breast cancer research technologies to market.

Each team was required to produce a short video explaining and highlighting their ideas.? The videos are from the winners of the Breast Cancer Startup Challenge.? This listing does not constitute NCI’s endorsement of the companies or potential products and does not guarantee a grant of license for any federally-owned technology.

Videos from the winning teams are below.

Challenge #1. Diagnostic from Biopsies with Software Analysis
Category: Diagnostics/Health IT
Lead Inventor: Tom Misteli, PhD, NCI
Winner: University of Cambridge

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Challenge #2 -Immunotherapy Using Modified Self Tumor Cells
Category: Therapeutic
Lead Inventor: Dennis Klinman, M.D., Ph.D., NCI
Winner: Washington University in Saint Louis

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Challenge #3 – Combination of Tissue Reconstruction and Recurrence Prevention
Category: Device/Therapeutic
Lead Inventor: Karen Burg, Ph.D., Clemson University
Winner: Tulane University

Finalist: Clemson University

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Challenge #4 – Human monoclonal Antibody Based Cancer Therapies
Category: Therapeutic, Diagnostic
Lead Inventor: Mitchell Ho, Ph.D., NCI
Winner: Stanford University

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Challenge #5 -Immunotherapy Using Granulysin Activated Monocytes
Category: Therapeutic
Lead Inventor: Alan Krensky, M.D., Northwestern University
Winner: Northwestern University

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Challenge #6 – Anti-cancer Toxin
Category: Therapeutic
Lead Inventor: Nadya Tarasova, Ph.D., NCI
Winner: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

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Challenge #7 – Versatile Delivery Method for Cancer Therapeutics
Category: Vaccine or Drug Delivery (Protein or RNA)
Lead Inventors: Stanislaw J Kaczmarczyk, Ph.D. & Deb Chatterjee, Ph.D., NCI
Winner: University of Cambridge

Finalist: Wake Forest University

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Challenge #8 -Genomic Based Diagnostic Assay
Category: Diagnostics and prognostic
Lead Inventor: Steven Libutti, M.D., FACS, NCI
Winner: University of California, Berkeley

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Challenge #9 -Tissue-based Diagnostic Assay
Category: Diagnostic
Lead Inventor: Stephen M. Hewitt, M.D., Ph.D., NCI
Winner: McGill University

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Challenge #10 – Diagnostic Kit for Therapy Benefit Prediction
Category: Diagnostic
Lead Inventor: Sherry Yang, MD., Ph.D., NCI
Winner: Tulane University

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U.S. justices decline to hear another Obamacare challenge

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a broad new legal challenge to President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare law.

The court rejected a petition filed by Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia, which had raised various objections to the law, including to the key provision that requires individuals to obtain health insurance.

The justices upheld the constitutionality of a the individual mandate in a 5-4 ruling in June 2012.

Last week, the court agreed to hear two new cases in which employers have made religious objections to regulations implemented under Obamacare that require employers to provide health insurance that includes contraception for women. The case will be heard this term and decided by the end of June.

By rejecting the Liberty University case, the justices left intact a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of a May 2013 decision that dismissed the claims made by the college and two individuals, Michele Waddell and Joanne Merrill.

The case is Liberty University v. Lew, U.S. Supreme Court, 13-306.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Bill Trott)

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Tackling large challenge for new modes of drug delivery

Nov. 12, 2013 — Research being carried out by academics at the University of Lincoln, UK, could result in new more effective drug treatments for prostate cancer, Multiple Sclerosis and cystic fibrosis.

Currently only 15 per cent of protein targets in human cancer cells can be 'targeted therapeutically', rendering the remaining 85 per cent of proteins out of reach of traditional small drug treatments. Academics are finding new pathways to deliver medicinal 'biologics' to these diseased cells.

Dr Ishwar Singh, from the School of Pharmacy, University of Lincoln, UK, is looking to develop a platform technology for tumor-specific delivery of biologics -- large molecule drugs based on nucleic acids, proteins and peptides with a potent and highly therapeutic effect.

He said: "Large molecule drugs are just that -- too big to pass through to the diseased cells. The challenge is to find a way to deliver these large molecules to the cells. Cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) are known to facilitate the delivery of therapeutic biologics into target cells. Unfortunately current CPPs are highly toxic, which has prevented their widespread use. The aim of our project is to develop a non-toxic drug delivery method which enables CPPs to selectively pass through cell membranes of cancer cells, delivering the drug to the target site without causing toxicity.

"In the long-term we will be able to use this approach to treat conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis, cystic fibrosis and even some forms of cancer that are currently resistant to available drugs. We are developing a platform technology which could then be applied to a range of conditions."

Biologics differ from small drug molecules not only in terms of size, but also in how they are made, how they behave, their mode of action in the body and their suitability for certain drug forms.

Small, chemically manufactured molecules are the classic active substances and still make up more than 90 per cent of drugs on the market today. However, therapeutics based on large molecules, such as antibodies, are becoming increasingly important.

Small molecules can be processed into easily ingestible tablets or capsules. When the tablet dissolves in the gastrointestinal tract, the dissolved active substance is absorbed into the bloodstream via the intestinal wall. Small drugs can then reach the site of action in the body because of their tiny size. Their small structure and chemical composition also helps them to penetrate cell membranes.

Large molecule drugs, which are created by biological or synthetic processes, are made up of proteins, nucleic acids, sugars or a complex combination of these substances, or may be living entities such as cells. Delivery of these therapeutics to target sites is therefore a more complex process.

Dr Singh has been awarded a Royal Society Research Grant which will facilitate his research with colleague Dr Driton Vllasaliu for the next year.

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