October 18, 2007
Grant furthers efforts to develop more effective treatments for metastatic prostate cancer
Philip Kantoff, MD
The Prostate Cancer Foundation has awarded a multi-institutional team of researchers, including from Dana-Farber, a $5 million grant to study whether nanoparticles, each no larger than 1/1,000 of a hair follicle cross section, can precisely deliver chemotherapy to cancer cells, thus sparing healthy cells.
The five-year grant, made possible from a gift from philanthropist David H. Koch to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, aims to facilitate the rapid clinical translation of nanotechnology to treat metastatic prostate cancer – for which currently there is no effective treatment.
Philip Kantoff, MD, director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber and one of four principal investigators for the study, said the team's research is focused on engineering "smart," multifunctional, targeted, biodegradable nanoparticles that can delivery higher doses of chemotherapy directly into cancer cells over an extended period of time.
"Bringing nanotechnology to the clinic in cancer is a very exciting possibility and I am very excited about working toward this end with this outstanding group of investigators from several institutions" said Kantoff, who is also a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
The study's other co-principal investigators are Omid Farokhzad, MD, at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Robert Langer, ScD, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Neil Bander, MD, at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.org) is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute.
