Scientists make breakthrough for 'next generation' cancer treatment


Date:
February 20, 2023
Source:
University of East Anglia
Summary:
Scientists are a step closer to creating a new generation of light-
activated cancer treatments. These new treatments would be highly
targeted and more effective than current state-of-the-art cancer
immunotherapies.


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FULL STORY ========================================================================== Scientists at the University of East Anglia are a step closer to creating
a new generation of light-activated cancer treatments.


==========================================================================
The futuristic sounding treatment would work by switching on LED lights embedded close to a tumour, which would then activate biotherapeutic
drugs.

These new treatments would be highly targeted and more effective than
current state-of-the-art cancer immunotherapies.

New research published today reveals the science behind this innovative
idea.

It shows how the UEA team have engineered antibody fragments -- which
not only 'fuse' with their target but are also light activated.

It means that in future, immunotherapy treatments could be engineered
to attack tumours more precisely than ever before.

The principal scientist for this study, Dr Amit Sachdeva, from UEA's
School of Chemistry, said: "Current cancer treatments like chemotherapy
kill cancer cells, but they can also damage healthy cells in your body
such as blood and skin cells.

"This means that they can cause side effects including hair loss, feeling
tired and sick, and they also put patients at increased risk of picking
up infections.

"There has therefore been a very big drive to create new treatments that
are more targeted and don't have these unwanted side-effects.

"Several antibodies and antibody fragments have already been developed to
treat cancer. These antibodies are much more selective than the cytotoxic
drugs used in chemotherapy, but they can still cause severe side effects,
as antibody targets are also present on healthy cells." Now, the UEA
team has engineered one of the first antibody fragments that binds to,
and forms a covalent bond with, its target -- upon irradiation with UV
light of a specific wavelength.

Dr Sachdeva said: "A covalent bond is a bit like melting two pieces of
plastic and fusing them together. It means that drug molecules could
for example be permanently fixed to a tumour.

"We hope that our work will lead to the development of a new class of
highly targeted light-responsive biotherapeutics. This would mean that antibodies could be activated at the site of a tumour and covalently
stick to their target upon light activation.

"In other words, you could activate antibodies to attack tumour cells
by shining light - either directly on to the skin, in the case of skin
cancer, or using small LED lights that could be implanted at the site
of a tumour inside the body.

"This would allow cancer treatment to be more efficient and targeted
because it means that only molecules in the vicinity of the tumour would
be activated, and it wouldn't affect other cells.

"This would potentially reduce side effects for patients, and also improve antibody residence time in the body." "It would work for cancers like
skin cancer, or where there is a solid tumour - but not for blood cancers
like leukaemia.

"Development of these antibody fragments would not have been possible
without pioneering work from several other research groups across the
globe who developed and optimised methods for site-specific incorporation
of non-natural amino acids into proteins expressed in live cells.

"We employed some of these methods to site-specifically install unique
light- sensitive amino acids into antibody fragments." If the researchers
are successful in the next stages of their work, they hope to see the
'next generation' light-activated immunotherapies being used to treat
cancer patients within five to 10 years.

This research was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council (BBSRC) and the Wellcome Trust. It was led by the
University of East Anglia with assistance from the proteomics facility
at the John Innes Centre.

* RELATED_TOPICS
o Health_&_Medicine
# Colon_Cancer # Lung_Cancer # Leukemia # Cancer #
Breast_Cancer # Skin_Cancer # Brain_Tumor # Lymphoma
* RELATED_TERMS
o Stem_cell_treatments o Breast_cancer o Cancer o
Cervical_cancer o Colorectal_cancer o Prostate_cancer o
Ultraviolet o Ovarian_cancer

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_East_Anglia. Note:
Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Thomas Bridge, Udo Wegmann, Jason C. Crack, Kate Orman, Saher
A. Shaikh,
William Farndon, Carlo Martins, Gerhard Saalbach, Amit
Sachdeva. Site- specific encoding of photoactivity and
photoreactivity into antibody fragments. Nature Chemical Biology,
2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41589-022-01251-9 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230220131902.htm

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