ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S5375

Radiobiology - Tumour biology

ESTRO 2024

Keywords: Prostate Cancer, Ceramides, Biomarker

References:

1. S. Sathishkumar et al., Cancer Biol Ther. 4, 979–986 (2005).

2. N. Dubois et al., Radiotherapy and Oncology. 119, 229–235 (2016).

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Digital Poster

Development of GLUT-1 targeted boron carriers for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT)

Tioga J Martin, Art Raitano, Samkeliso Dlamini, Chunying Zhang, Linnette Capo, Maki Ikeura, Karen Morrison, Maria Christina Malinao, Jason Quintana, Kendall Morrison, Michael Torgov

TAE, Life Sciences, Los Angeles, USA

Purpose/Objective:

Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) is a very successful treatment for multiple cancers, particularly head and neck cancer, glioblastoma and melanoma. It is approved in Japan for treating head and neck cancer but global adoption has been hindered due to the historical need for a nuclear reactor as neutron source and the reliance on poorly soluble LAT1 targeting boronophenylalanine (BPA) as a source of boron. To overcome the hurdles described above, TAE Life Sciences, have developed a modern and compact, low energy tandem accelerator as a neutron source (2.5 MeV proton energy) operating at 10mA with a lithium target generating neutrons in the epithermal spectrum ideal for BNCT. The first of these compact tandem accelerators is currently in use at Xiamen Biomedical Industrial Park, which is part of the Xiamen Humanity Hospital in China.

Material/Methods:

At TAE Life Sciences, in addition to developing a modern neutron source, we are also testing novel boronated small molecules as alternatives to BPA. Certain cancers, including pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, hepatocellular carcinoma and lung carcinoma, have been shown to overexpress glucose transporters and due to the Warburg effect, where malignant cells rely on inefficient aerobic glycolysis for energy production (rather than oxidative phosphorylation seen in normal differentiated cells), have an extremely high demand for glucose. In addition, using aerobic glycolysis, cancer cells tend to convert most glucose to lactate regardless of whether oxygen is present. This could be very important in treating hypoxic tumors.