› Forums › Pediatric & AYA Melanoma Community › A new way to define edges of tumors? & to deliver chmeo?
- This topic has 9 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 8 months ago by arthurjedi007.
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- March 18, 2015 at 5:12 am
One Doctor’s Quest to Save People by Injecting Them With Scorpion Venom
One Doctor’s Quest to Save People by Injecting Them With Scorpion Venom
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/scorpion-venom/A pediatric cancer nurse out in Seattle and has been working on this project. She tells this lady it is currently being used in Australia in adult melanoma patients and seeing positive results.
Brendan I. Koerner Magazine
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06.24.14
One Doctor’s Quest to Save People by Injecting Them With Scorpion Venom
http://www.fredhutch.org/en/labs/project-violet.html
A decade-long quest to solve one of the most vexing problems in oncology: the fact that a tumor’s precise boundaries are nearly impossible to define during surgery.
A preoperative MRI provides only a rough guide to a tumor’s fuzzy edges; the scans often miss slivers of cancer that seamlessly blend into the surrounding tissue. Surgeons often face a brutal catch-22: Either cut out any suspicious tissue, an approach that can lead to debilitating side effects, or risk leaving behind malignant cells that will eventually kill the patient.
Olson tells the students that he finally has a solution. His laboratory at the renowned Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, located just down the road by Seattle’s Lake Union, has developed a compound that appears to pinpoint all of the malignant cells in a patient’s body. It gives those cells a bright fluorescent sheen, so that surgeons can easily spot them in the operating room. Olson calls the product Tumor Paint, and it comes with a surprising twist: The compound’s main ingredient is a molecule that is found in the stinger of Leiurus quinquestriatus, a potent little animal more popularly known as the deathstalker scorpion.
Olson thought he could accomplish this feat by modifying a molecule known to bind specifically to cancer cells. If he could attach a fluorescent dye to such a molecule, maybe he could make the tumors glow a brilliant blue or green when viewed through a near-infrared camera positioned next to the operating table. Surgeons would then have no problem seeing exactly where a tumor began and ended.
Ullrich hypothesized that the tumors could be held in check if there were a drug capable of blocking their ability to “sweat” chloride. Chlorotoxin promised to do just that.
When she injected chlorotoxin into the brains of mice with gliomas, Ullrich found that the peptide would bind only to the cancer cells; the molecule wanted nothing to do with the normal cells adjacent to the tumors.
the chlorotoxin didn’t attach just to brain tumors—it grabbed onto all sorts of cancers, from those that affect the skin to those that destroy the lungs. They also learned that the peptide could cross the barrier that protects the brain from toxins and other chemicals—a rare attribute for a molecule of its size.
In one instance, the chlorotoxin illuminated a clump of just 200 malignant cells that were burrowed deep within a wad of fat. “That was the point we learned that the technology was far more sensitive than an MRI,”
Blaze launched the first human clinical trial of Tumor Paint in December 2013; a second Phase I trial is slated to begin later this year.
Olson’s tattoo is a tribute to not only chlorotoxin but also a range of similar peptides that he’s now investigating as possible weapons against cancer and other diseases. Using a custom-written Python program that can troll through decades’ worth of genomic databases on venoms, his lab has identified hundreds of thousands of molecules that share chlorotoxin’s central knot of disulfide bonds and thus may form the basis for new cancer-fighting drugs.
Painting Tumors
Brain surgeons can’t easily distinguish a tumor from healthy tissue. Jim Olson’s Tumor Paint solves this problem by giving tumors an eerie and distinct fluorescent glow. —Jason Kehe
Step 1 Olson needed a compound that would locate only tumor cells. The answer: chlorotoxin, a (nontoxic to humans) molecule found in the venom of the deathstalker scorpion.
Step 2 Chemists attach a fluorescent dye—the FDA-approved indocyanine green (a)—to laboratory-made chlorotoxin (b). The resulting compound glows in near-infrared light.
Step 3 Before surgery, Tumor Paint—which can cross the blood-brain barrier—is injected into the patient’s bloodstream through an IV and begins circulating within the body.
Step 4 The outsides of tumor cells contain a protein healthy cells don’t: Annexin A2 (a). Research shows chlorotoxin (b) binds to Annexin A2 and from there seeps into tumor cells (c).
Step 5 It can take an hour or two for enough of the compound to accumulate in a tumor to be useful. Even then surgeons still can’t see their targets with the naked eye. Instead, they point a near-infrared laser at the area—often in the hard-to-operate-on brain—and a special camera captures the light emitted from the Tumor Paint. Tumors appear on a monitor as ghostly-green blobs.
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- March 18, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Not sure how widespread they are yet but the surgeons at Siteman cancer center in Saint Louis have special glasses now that they can wear to distinguish the cancer vs non cancer cells during surgery. Thought that might be of interest too on this topic.
Artie
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- March 20, 2015 at 10:46 am
Arthurjedioo7, the glasse are interesting. Afe they the glassed talkead about that are needed to the the ancaerous cells in thei article or are they a different type if glasses?
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- March 21, 2015 at 4:17 am
Wish I knew how to use this iPad better and I would send a link. But if you google Siteman cancer glasses the first link is special glasses help surgeons see cancer Siteman cancer center. Oh maybe I can just type the link.
http://www.siteman.wustl.edu/ContentPage.aspx?id=7929
It doesn't go into that level of detail of types of cells. Just that cells as small as 1mm glow. Also they are trying different types of contrasts to make it better. For the article they only tried it on one person and will try it on a Mel person.
Artie
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- March 21, 2015 at 4:17 am
Wish I knew how to use this iPad better and I would send a link. But if you google Siteman cancer glasses the first link is special glasses help surgeons see cancer Siteman cancer center. Oh maybe I can just type the link.
http://www.siteman.wustl.edu/ContentPage.aspx?id=7929
It doesn't go into that level of detail of types of cells. Just that cells as small as 1mm glow. Also they are trying different types of contrasts to make it better. For the article they only tried it on one person and will try it on a Mel person.
Artie
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- March 21, 2015 at 4:17 am
Wish I knew how to use this iPad better and I would send a link. But if you google Siteman cancer glasses the first link is special glasses help surgeons see cancer Siteman cancer center. Oh maybe I can just type the link.
http://www.siteman.wustl.edu/ContentPage.aspx?id=7929
It doesn't go into that level of detail of types of cells. Just that cells as small as 1mm glow. Also they are trying different types of contrasts to make it better. For the article they only tried it on one person and will try it on a Mel person.
Artie
-
- March 20, 2015 at 10:46 am
Arthurjedioo7, the glasse are interesting. Afe they the glassed talkead about that are needed to the the ancaerous cells in thei article or are they a different type if glasses?
-
- March 20, 2015 at 10:46 am
Arthurjedioo7, the glasse are interesting. Afe they the glassed talkead about that are needed to the the ancaerous cells in thei article or are they a different type if glasses?
-
- March 18, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Not sure how widespread they are yet but the surgeons at Siteman cancer center in Saint Louis have special glasses now that they can wear to distinguish the cancer vs non cancer cells during surgery. Thought that might be of interest too on this topic.
Artie
-
- March 18, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Not sure how widespread they are yet but the surgeons at Siteman cancer center in Saint Louis have special glasses now that they can wear to distinguish the cancer vs non cancer cells during surgery. Thought that might be of interest too on this topic.
Artie
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Tagged: cutaneous melanoma, pediatric melanoma
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