it was a Sunday afternoon back in April
of this year my phone was ringing I
picked it up the voice said it’s Rebecca
I’m just calling to invite you to my
funeral
I said Rebecca what are you talking
about
she said joy asked my friend you have to
let me go it’s my time the next day she
was dead
Rebecca was 31 years old
when she died she had an eight-year
struggle with breast cancer it came back
three times I failed her the scientific
community failed her and the medical
community failed her and she’s not the
only one every five seconds someone dies
of cancer
today we medical researchers are
committed to having Rebecca and people
like her be one of the last patients
that we fail the US government alone has
spent over a hundred billion on cancer
research since the 1970s with limited
progress in regards to patient survival
especially for certain types of very
aggressive cancers so we need a change
because clearly what we’ve been doing so
far has not been working and what we do
in medicine is to send out firefighters
because cancer is like a big fire and
these firefighters are the cancer drugs
but we’re sending them out without a
fire truck
so without transportation without
ladders and without emergency equipment
and over 99% of these firefighters never
make it to the fire over 99% of cancer
drugs never make it to the tumor because
they lack transportation and tools to
take them to the location
they’re aiming for turns out it really
is all about location location location
so we need a fire truck to get to the
right location and I’m here to tell you
that nanoparticles are the fire trucks
we can load cancer drugs inside
nanoparticles and nanoparticles can
function as the carrier and necessary
equipment to bring the cancer drugs to
the heart of the tumor so what are
nanoparticles and what does it really
mean to be nano sized well there are
many different types of nanoparticles
made out of various materials such as
metal based nanoparticles or fat based
nanoparticles but to really illustrate
what it means to be nano sized I took
one of my hair strands and placed it
under the microscope now I have very
thin hair so my hair is approximately
40,000 nanometers in diameter so this
means if we take 400 of our
nanoparticles and we stack them on top
of each other we get the thickness of a
single hair strand so I lead a
nanoparticle laboratory to fight cancer
and other diseases at Mayo Clinic here
in Jacksonville and a Mayo Clinic we
really have the tools to make a
difference for patients thanks to the
generous donations and grants to fund
our research and so how do these
nanoparticles manage to transport cancer
drugs to the tumor well they have an
extensive toolbox so cancer drugs
without nanoparticles are quickly washed
out of the body through the kidneys
because they’re so small so it’s like
water going through a sieve and so they
don’t really have time to reach the
tumor and here we see an illustration of
this we have the firefighters the cancer
drugs they’re circulating in the blood
but they’re quickly washed out of the
body and they don’t really end up inside
tomber but if we put these cancer drugs
inside nanoparticles they will not get
washed out by the body because the
nanoparticles are too big and they will
continue to circulate in the blood
giving them more time to find the tumor
and here we see that the cancer drugs
the firefighters inside the fire truck
the nanoparticles
they’re circulating in the blood they
don’t get washed out and they actually
end up reaching the tumor and so what
other tools do nanoparticles have well
they can protect cancer drugs from
getting destroyed inside the body there
are certain very important but sensitive
drugs that are easily degraded by
enzymes in the blood so unless they have
this nanoparticle protection they will
not be able to function
another nanoparticle tool are the
surface extensions that are like tiny
hands with fingers that grab on to the
tumor and fit exactly onto it so that
when the nanoparticles are circulating
they can attach onto the cancer cells
buying the cancer drugs more time to do
their job and these are just some of the
many tools that nanoparticles can have
and today we have more than 10
clinically approved nanoparticles for
cancer that are given to patients all
over the world yet we have patients like
Rebecca who died so what are the major
challenges and limitations with
currently approved nanoparticles well a
major challenge is the liver because the
liver is the body’s filtration system
and the liver recognizes and destroys
foreign objects such as viruses bacteria
and also nanoparticles and the immune
cells in the liver eat the nanoparticles
preventing them from reaching the tumor
and here we see an illustration where
the kidney is no longer a problem but
these fire trucks the nanoparticles get
stuck in the liver actually less of them
end up reaching the tumor so a future
strategy to improve nanoparticles is to
temporarily disarm the immune cells in
the liver so how do we disarm these
cells well we looked at drugs that were
already clinically approved for other
indications to see if any of them could
stop the immune cells from eating the
nanoparticles and unexpectedly in one of
our preclinical studies we found that a
70 year old malaria drug was able to
stop the immune cells from internalizing
the nanoparticles so that they could
escape the liver and continue that
journey to their goal the tumor and here
we see the illustration of blocking the
liver the nanoparticles don’t go there
and they instead end up in the tumor so
sometimes unexpected connections are
made in science that lead to new
solutions another strategy for
preventing nanoparticles from getting
stuck in the liver is to use the body’s
own nanoparticles yes surprise surprise
you and you and you and all of us have a
lot of nanoparticles circulating in our
bodies and because they’re part of our
bodies the liver is less likely to label
them as foreign and these biological
nanoparticles can be found in the saliva
in the blood in the urine in pancreatic
juice and we can collect them from the
body and use them as fire trucks for
cancer drugs and in this case the immune
cells in the liver are less likely to
eat the biological nanoparticles so
we’re using a Trojan horse based concept
to fool the liver and here we see the
biological nanoparticles circulating in
the blood they don’t get recognized by
the liver and they end up in the tumor
and in the future we want to exploit
nature’s own
nanoparticles for cancer drug delivery
to reduce side effects and save lives by
preventing the cancer drugs from being
in the wrong location however a major
problem has been how do we isolate these
biological nanoparticles in large
quantities without damaging them my lab
has developed an efficient method for
doing this we can process large
quantities of liquids from the body to
produce a highly concentrated
high-quality formulation or biological
nanoparticles and these nanoparticles
are not yet in clinical use because it
takes an average of 12 years to get
something from the lab to your medicine
cabinet and this is the type of
challenge that requires teamwork from
scientists and physicians who dedicate
their lives to this battle and we keep
going thanks to inspiration from
patients and I believe that if we keep
working on these nano medicines we will
be able to reduce harm to health the
organs improve quality of life and save
future patients I like to imagine that
if these treatments had been available
for Rebecca that call from her could
have been an invitation not to her funeral but her wedding thank you
of this year my phone was ringing I
picked it up the voice said it’s Rebecca
I’m just calling to invite you to my
funeral
I said Rebecca what are you talking
about
she said joy asked my friend you have to
let me go it’s my time the next day she
was dead
Rebecca was 31 years old
when she died she had an eight-year
struggle with breast cancer it came back
three times I failed her the scientific
community failed her and the medical
community failed her and she’s not the
only one every five seconds someone dies
of cancer
today we medical researchers are
committed to having Rebecca and people
like her be one of the last patients
that we fail the US government alone has
spent over a hundred billion on cancer
research since the 1970s with limited
progress in regards to patient survival
especially for certain types of very
aggressive cancers so we need a change
because clearly what we’ve been doing so
far has not been working and what we do
in medicine is to send out firefighters
because cancer is like a big fire and
these firefighters are the cancer drugs
but we’re sending them out without a
fire truck
so without transportation without
ladders and without emergency equipment
and over 99% of these firefighters never
make it to the fire over 99% of cancer
drugs never make it to the tumor because
they lack transportation and tools to
take them to the location
they’re aiming for turns out it really
is all about location location location
so we need a fire truck to get to the
right location and I’m here to tell you
that nanoparticles are the fire trucks
we can load cancer drugs inside
nanoparticles and nanoparticles can
function as the carrier and necessary
equipment to bring the cancer drugs to
the heart of the tumor so what are
nanoparticles and what does it really
mean to be nano sized well there are
many different types of nanoparticles
made out of various materials such as
metal based nanoparticles or fat based
nanoparticles but to really illustrate
what it means to be nano sized I took
one of my hair strands and placed it
under the microscope now I have very
thin hair so my hair is approximately
40,000 nanometers in diameter so this
means if we take 400 of our
nanoparticles and we stack them on top
of each other we get the thickness of a
single hair strand so I lead a
nanoparticle laboratory to fight cancer
and other diseases at Mayo Clinic here
in Jacksonville and a Mayo Clinic we
really have the tools to make a
difference for patients thanks to the
generous donations and grants to fund
our research and so how do these
nanoparticles manage to transport cancer
drugs to the tumor well they have an
extensive toolbox so cancer drugs
without nanoparticles are quickly washed
out of the body through the kidneys
because they’re so small so it’s like
water going through a sieve and so they
don’t really have time to reach the
tumor and here we see an illustration of
this we have the firefighters the cancer
drugs they’re circulating in the blood
but they’re quickly washed out of the
body and they don’t really end up inside
tomber but if we put these cancer drugs
inside nanoparticles they will not get
washed out by the body because the
nanoparticles are too big and they will
continue to circulate in the blood
giving them more time to find the tumor
and here we see that the cancer drugs
the firefighters inside the fire truck
the nanoparticles
they’re circulating in the blood they
don’t get washed out and they actually
end up reaching the tumor and so what
other tools do nanoparticles have well
they can protect cancer drugs from
getting destroyed inside the body there
are certain very important but sensitive
drugs that are easily degraded by
enzymes in the blood so unless they have
this nanoparticle protection they will
not be able to function
another nanoparticle tool are the
surface extensions that are like tiny
hands with fingers that grab on to the
tumor and fit exactly onto it so that
when the nanoparticles are circulating
they can attach onto the cancer cells
buying the cancer drugs more time to do
their job and these are just some of the
many tools that nanoparticles can have
and today we have more than 10
clinically approved nanoparticles for
cancer that are given to patients all
over the world yet we have patients like
Rebecca who died so what are the major
challenges and limitations with
currently approved nanoparticles well a
major challenge is the liver because the
liver is the body’s filtration system
and the liver recognizes and destroys
foreign objects such as viruses bacteria
and also nanoparticles and the immune
cells in the liver eat the nanoparticles
preventing them from reaching the tumor
and here we see an illustration where
the kidney is no longer a problem but
these fire trucks the nanoparticles get
stuck in the liver actually less of them
end up reaching the tumor so a future
strategy to improve nanoparticles is to
temporarily disarm the immune cells in
the liver so how do we disarm these
cells well we looked at drugs that were
already clinically approved for other
indications to see if any of them could
stop the immune cells from eating the
nanoparticles and unexpectedly in one of
our preclinical studies we found that a
70 year old malaria drug was able to
stop the immune cells from internalizing
the nanoparticles so that they could
escape the liver and continue that
journey to their goal the tumor and here
we see the illustration of blocking the
liver the nanoparticles don’t go there
and they instead end up in the tumor so
sometimes unexpected connections are
made in science that lead to new
solutions another strategy for
preventing nanoparticles from getting
stuck in the liver is to use the body’s
own nanoparticles yes surprise surprise
you and you and you and all of us have a
lot of nanoparticles circulating in our
bodies and because they’re part of our
bodies the liver is less likely to label
them as foreign and these biological
nanoparticles can be found in the saliva
in the blood in the urine in pancreatic
juice and we can collect them from the
body and use them as fire trucks for
cancer drugs and in this case the immune
cells in the liver are less likely to
eat the biological nanoparticles so
we’re using a Trojan horse based concept
to fool the liver and here we see the
biological nanoparticles circulating in
the blood they don’t get recognized by
the liver and they end up in the tumor
and in the future we want to exploit
nature’s own
nanoparticles for cancer drug delivery
to reduce side effects and save lives by
preventing the cancer drugs from being
in the wrong location however a major
problem has been how do we isolate these
biological nanoparticles in large
quantities without damaging them my lab
has developed an efficient method for
doing this we can process large
quantities of liquids from the body to
produce a highly concentrated
high-quality formulation or biological
nanoparticles and these nanoparticles
are not yet in clinical use because it
takes an average of 12 years to get
something from the lab to your medicine
cabinet and this is the type of
challenge that requires teamwork from
scientists and physicians who dedicate
their lives to this battle and we keep
going thanks to inspiration from
patients and I believe that if we keep
working on these nano medicines we will
be able to reduce harm to health the
organs improve quality of life and save
future patients I like to imagine that
if these treatments had been available
for Rebecca that call from her could
have been an invitation not to her funeral but her wedding thank you
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