Robert Gillies

Equity Interest - Publicly traded entity (e.g., stock, stock option, or other ownership interest)

Imaging Habitats in Sarcoma

Sarcomas are cancers of connective tissue and are fundamentally different from carcinomas, such as lung, breast, prostate or pancreatic cancers. Sarcomas are more prevalent in children, and there are over 50 sub-types known. There is a real problem because, at the molecular level, they are as different from each other as they are from the carcinomas, yet they are all treated the same. In this proposal, we hypothesize that commonality among sarcomas can be found in their physiology. Importantly, these physiologies can be targeted with specific drugs and, even more important, these physiologies can be imaged with MRI. We call these physiologies 'habitats' because multiple different physiological environments can co-exist within a single tumor, and they are defined by their MRI-measurable blood supply and cell density. For this proposal, we will target our therapies against areas with high cell density, because that's where the cancer cells are. Within these areas, if the habitat has an abundant blood supply, we will use doxorubicin, a standard chemotherapy agent that relies on an adequate blood supply to work. If the blood supply is lacking, we will target those areas with a new class of drugs that are active in oxygen-poor environments; the so-called hypoxia activated pro-drugs (HAPs). Thus, by imaging the habitats, we can we propose to use imaging to determine what kind of drugs, and in what order, sarcoma patients should receive.