A UCLA-led research team has developed a spray gel embedded with immune-boosting drugs for post-surgery cancer patients to thwart reccurrence and spreading of the disease.
After initial testing on animals, there is sufficient evidence of efficacy to move forward.
The substance was successful half of the time in awakening the subjects’ immune systems to stop the cancer from recurring and even inhibit it from spreading to other parts of the body.
“This sprayable gel shows promise against one of the greatest obstacles in curing cancer,” said Zhen Gu, a professor and member of the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “One of the trademarks of cancers is that it spreads. In fact, around 90 percent of people with cancerous tumors end up dying because of tumor recurrence or metastasis. Being able to develop something that helps lower this risk for this to occur and has low toxicity is especially gratifying.”
The gel treatment will have to go through further testing and approvals before it could be used in humans, but the hope and goal is that the treatment will be able to be applied to the tumor resection site by surgeons immediately after the tumor is removed during surgery.
What’s in the Gel?
The gel substance is loaded with nanoparticles filled with an antibody specifically targeted to block CD47, a protein that cancer cells release as a “don’t-eat-me” signal. By blocking CD47, the antibody enables the immune system to find and ultimately destroy the cancer cells.
The nanoparticles are made of calcium carbonate – which is what egg shells are mostly made of. Researchers chose calcium carbonate because it can gradually dissolve in surgical wound sites and because it boosts the activity of a type of macrophage that helps rid the body of foreign objects.
In other words, the gel is biodegradable and not loaded with toxins and materials that could bring negative effects to the body.
“We also learned that the gel could activate T cells in the immune system to get them to work together as another line of attack against lingering cancer cells,” said Qian Chen, the study’s lead author.
As the team takes the next step in approvals and testing, it’s another great milestone in the new and innovative ways to treat different forms of cancer.
