New Targets and Delivery Systems in Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment

Synopsis

Molecular targeting is becoming the new paradigm in therapy, delivery, imaging and diagnosis of cancer. Sidney Kimmel’s educational conference will introduce new molecular and cellular delivery systems, vascular and tissue targets for therapy Nanoparticles, recombinant biologicals, and vectors for imaging are also included.

The development of new forms of delivery vehicles including antibodies, recombinant biologicals, vectors, liposomes, and nanoparticles. Vectors that utilize new technologies such as: Nanomedicine, vector targeting, targeting with recombinant biologics and cellular targeting for imaging that are now used in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

The technologies of interrogating neoplastic and normal tissue for change at the genetic, protein, cellular and organismal levels have provided scientists an opportunity to design and test new approaches for the targeting of therapy to cancer and its supporting tissues.

The relationship between inflammation and cancer is revealed by looking at the targeting of the immune response and by examining the molecules released by cancer cells (eg chemokines) that attract many different types of hematopoietic and mesenchymal cells to the tumor tissue. The subjects of the structural biology of cancer cells, the engineering of gene therapy vectors for targeting, and the proteogenomics of the tumor vasculature are integrated into the presentations.

Finally, the ability to design therapeutics that are specific for molecular defects in the cancer cells has changed the way eligibility criteria for phase I-III clinical trials have been established. The use of biological surrogate endpoints has now become a part of many biological therapy phase I-III clinical trials.