medicine
Image courtesy of Creative Commons.
A Cure for Cancer: How to Kill a Killer Khushmi Shah
Cancer: the second leading cause of death in the United States. Even the sound of the word is feared. Imagine a world in which the disease is no longer an inevitable death sentence. At UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Andrew Wang’s lab strives to do exactly this. Dr. Wang received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Clinical and Translational Research in the Department of Radiation Oncology at UNC. He also co-directs the Carolina Cancer Nanotechnology Training Program. At the Wang Lab, researchers endeavor to apply nanotechnology to the development of cancer therapeutics in the form of drugs. The most recent major developments have been in boosting cancer immunotherapy, which is the body’s natural defense to fight cancer. Dr. Wang focuses his research on finding the most efficient ways to fight cancer. One of the primary therapeutic theories that caught his attention was the abscopal effect, which claims that when you treat something locally, you will see a similar effect on the whole body. For example, while radiation can be directed to destroy tumors Dr. Andrew Wang in a targeted region, its effect can also be seen throughout the rest of the body. About ten years ago, a new publication was released which described a patient receiving cancer immunotherapy as a treatment. While the patient responded initially, her body soon became resistant. As her metastasis progressed, she was given radiation to a tumor next to her spine that was giving her pain. “The re-
corded result was phenomenal, as not only the tumor disappeared, but all of the cancer in the woman’s body went away,” says Dr. Wang.1 This was the first major evidence of the abscopal effect and its efficiency. However, while the majority of tumors shrunk as a result of the treatment, Dr. Wang was compelled by the fact that some tumors still remained in the body. After reflection of the situation, Dr. Wang realized that he might be able to use nanoparticles to enhance the abscopal effect and advance cancer treatment. Using his prior knowledge from the field of nanomedicine, he developed an experiment that tested this question. Nanoparticles are microscopic particles that exist in the natural world but can also be created in a lab. One of their most important roles in medicine is their ability to carry drugs and participate in targeted therapy due to their unique structure. One can think of a nanoparticle as a sphere with unique chemical structural features that allow it to attach to specific targets. The Wang Lab is known for their use of nanotechnology and chemical engineering techniques to advance
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Figure 1: Schematic drawing of the mechanism utilized by nanoparticles to capture tumor antigens. Image courtesy of Dr. Andrew Wang.
