How effective are current cancer therapies?
With DeepMACT, the researchers now have a tool with which to assess the targeting of clinical cancer therapies that employ tumor-specific monoclonal antibodies. As a representative example, they have used DeepMACT to quantify the efficacy of a therapeutic antibody named 6A10, which had been shown to reduce tumor growth. The results demonstrated that 6A10 can miss up to 23% of the metastases in the bodies of affected mice. This underlines the importance of the analysis of targeting efficacy at the level of single metastases for the development of novel tumor drugs. The method can potentially also track the distribution of small-molecule drugs when they are conjugated to fluorescent dyes.
On the way to stop the metastatic process
Taken together, these results show that DeepMACT not only provides a powerful method for the comprehensive analysis of cancer metastases, but also provides a sensitive tool for therapeutic drug assessment in pre-clinical studies. "The battle against cancer has been underway for decades and there is still a long way to go before we can finally defeat the disease. In order to develop more effective cancer therapies, it is critical to understand the metastatic mechanisms in diverse cancer types and to develop tumor-specific drugs that are capable to stop the metastatic process," explains Ertürk.
DeepMACT is publicly available and can be easily adopted in other laboratories focusing on diverse tumor models and treatment options. "Today, the success rate of clinical trials in oncology is around 5%. We believe that the DeepMACT technology can substantially improve the drug development process in preclinical research. Thus, could help finding much more powerful drug candidates for clinical trials and hopefully help to save many lives".
The Helmholtz Zentrum München, the German Research Center for Environmental Health, pursues the goal of developing personalized medical approaches for the prevention and therapy of major common diseases such as diabetes, allergies and lung diseases. To achieve this, it investigates the interaction of genetics, environmental factors and lifestyle. The Helmholtz Zentrum München is headquartered in Neuherberg in the north of Munich and has about 2,500 staff members. It is a member of the Helmholtz Association, a community of 19 scientific-technical and medical-biological research centers with a total of about 37,000 staff members.
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