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Researcher closes in on brain cancer cure
SCOTT DAVIS
THE SAGINAW NEWS
February 20, 2005 - Verne D. Hulce wants to take the blast out of glioblastoma. An insidious cancer that destroys the brain and kills thousands of Americans annually, glioblastoma is in the cross-hairs of the Saginaw Township researcher.
Hulce, executive director of the Field Neurosciences Institute, is trying to win funding and federal approval for a human clinical trial in Saginaw to test an experimental gene therapy.
Part of a brave new world of research into genetic-based therapies, Hulce said he has faith the institute's proposed treatment ultimately will succeed in wiping out brain tumors. "It would revolutionize it," Hulce said of the cancer treatment. "We would have people coming from all over the world to get the therapy." Luckily, the institute is part of the way there.
Field Neurosciences Institute, 4677 Towne Center, and its partner -- Falk Center for Molecular Therapeutics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. -- recently made the first cut in a bid to win a $1.2 million research grant for the endeavor. The two are among 85 of the initial 111 competitors still in the running for 2005 Technology Tri-Corridor funding.
Technology Tri-Corridor is a state-run effort designed to bolster job creation in the life sciences, homeland security and advanced automotive technology industries. It will award the grant money by this summer.
If it wins the funding, the Field Neurosciences Institute then would have to win approval next fall for human clinical trials from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Health. Dr. E. Malcolm Field, a Saginaw Township neurosurgeon and founder of the institute, and Joseph R. Moskal, director of the Falk Center, are principal investigators in the study.
"It would be a dream come true just to see it in the clinic," said Moskal, a Saginaw native who has researched a cancer cure for 20 years. "Even if we don't slam drunk brain cancer, it's a critical step along the way to come up with a cure. We're not going to fail; we just may not live enough to see it."
A treatment for brain cancer is of vital concern, researchers say, because it is among the most fatal kind of cancer.
About 12,000 Americans suffer from glioblastoma multiforme -- the deadliest form of brain cancer targeted by Falk and Field Neurosciences researchers -- and doctors diagnose 6,500 new cases a year. Victims have a life expectancy of less than a year.
Hulce said the Midwest has a disproportionately high number of glioblastoma multiforme cases, but researchers aren't sure why.
"The current treatments are surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, and none of them work," said Rich Herm, a clinical research coordinator at Field Neurosciences Institute.
Even if the treatment removes the tumors, doctors say, they almost always return.
Hulce said the proposed human trials, which would occur at Saint Mary's hospital in Saginaw, are an outgrowth of the institute's three-year collaboration with the Falk Center.
Five years ago, the Falk Center encountered a major breakthrough with an experimental gene therapy. Researchers injected sialyltransferase cells -- a form of enzyme -- along with cancer cells into laboratory mice, and then injected only the cancerous cells into a second group.
No tumors emerged in the first group of mice with the enzyme, Moskal said, but hideous growths emerged in the second group within 30 days.
"I stepped back and said, 'There's the cornerstone in the program,"' Moskal said. "We knew we would have tremendous hurdles to cure any form of brain cancer, and we had the mandate to go forward and try to do it."
Normally, glioblastoma cells work like "stealth fighters," undetected within the body, which allows them to replicate many times over. But sialyltransferase cells work by creating proteins on the surface of the glioblastoma, which marks them so the body's natural defenses can identify them and wipe them out.
Hulce said results appear promising, but it remains unclear how the sialyltransferase cells would work in humans.
If approved, the human clinical trials at Saint Mary's would proceed in three stages. The first phase, lasting up to two years, would include 10 to 20 patients who are terminally ill and in the final stages of brain cancer.
Herm said doctors would inject the sialyltransferase cells into the brain during surgery to remove a brain tumor. They introduce the cells into the body in the form of a virus, which allows them to replicate in the brain much more rapidly.
During the first phase, he said, researchers want to make sure the sialyltransferase cells are not harming patients. If the results look promising, they will examine how effective the treatment is during the second phase.
A third phase may involve a nationwide clinical study.
Hulce said smaller researchers now have the task of exploring these gene therapies because large pharmaceutical companies are spending their research dollars on drugs with bigger payoffs.
He said he doesn't anticipate having trouble finding volunteers for the clinical trial, noting the ineffectiveness of existing treatments.
"People are desperate, and they'll go to unproven (treatments)," Hulce said. "We do this ethically and responsibly, with data." v
Scott Davis is a staff writer for The Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9665.
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