Advances in precision medicine — driven by researchers at PRiME — could make radiation therapy both more effective and less toxic for patients.
The research team included Noor Al-saden, one of 10 PhD students and postdoctoral fellows at U of T who took part in the inaugural 2019 PRiME Fellowship Awards – a program to propel high-risk, high-reward, multidisciplinary research in precision medicine. It also included Raymond Reilly, a professor in the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, and Mitch Winnik, a professor in the Department of Chemistry in Faculty of Arts & Science.
Together, the researchers focused on glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), a rare, fast-growing cancer that begins in the brain. To treat it, they coated the surface of gold nanoparticles with a polymer that included various metal-binding sites. These sites were used to hold a radioisotope, in this case, Lutetium-177, that delivered radiation in a highly localized way, keeping it within two millimetres from the site where the nanoparticles were injected.
In animal studies, the use of gold nanoparticles in radiation resulted in tumours that were no longer detectable by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) four weeks after the treatment. The research was published in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.
The PRiME Fellowship Program is a collaboration between PRiME member organizations, including: the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, U of T Faculty of Arts & Sciences, U of T Faculty of Applied Sciences and Engineering, University of Toronto Mississauga, the Hospital for Sick Children, Unity Health Toronto, University Health Network, Women’s College Hospital and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. To date, 65 PRiME Fellowships have been awarded, with the most recent cohort announced at the fifth annual PRiME Symposium held February 20, 2024.