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Current cancer therapy is very toxic and does not always work. We have developed a way to deliver much more drug to the tumor, and much less to the patient, by packaging the drug in properly designed nanomedicines. These delivery systems take advantage of the fact that most aggressive tumors have leaky blood vessels, so our nanomedicines can pass through into the tumor, but they bypass most normal tissues. Using these formulations, we can deliver 10-100 times as much drug to the tumor, so we can use less total drug and still get better results. In addition, Dr. Brodeur is using a novel drug called SN22. Although SN22 is related to a commonly used chemotherapy agent called irinotecan, it is an active drug, and unlike irinotecan it does not have to be activated by the liver. It is not only much more potent but also harder for the tumor cells to get rid of. These features make SN22 much more therapeutically effective. The carrier Dr. Brodeur is using to make this nanomedicine can deliver four molecules of SN22 within each “packet” that enters the tumor. Because he can use less total drug, and because the nanomedicine can circulate for a long time with the drug attached, there is much less exposure to the rest of the body, so side effects are dramatically reduced. As the recipient of the Invictus Fund St. Baldrick's Research Grant, Dr. Brodeur's goal is to develop more effective but less toxic therapy to treat children with cancer, and he can accomplish that goal with this approach using nanomedicine-based drug delivery. The nanomedicines he is developing should be effective against many different solid tumors in children or adults and he hopes to bring them forward to Phase 1 clinical trials.

This grant is funded by and named for the Invictus Fund, a St. Baldrick's Hero Fund created in memory of Holden Gilkinson and honors his unconquerable spirit in his battle with bilateral Wilms tumor as personified in the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley. His family hopes to fund cures and treatments to mitigate side and late effects of childhood cancer.

The chemotherapy drugs used to treat cancer do not always work, because only a small amount of the drug ever gets to the tumor. Also, these drugs are very toxic to the patient. However, if we package the drugs into little packets called nanoparticles, we get a lot more drug into the tumor because their blood vessels are leaky. Also, the nanoparticles are too big to get into most normal tissues. Dr. Brodeur's Invictus Fund St. Baldrick’s Research Grant aims to find successful ways to give less total drug, have a much greater effect on the tumor, and have much less toxicity to the patient.

This grant is funded by and named for the Invictus Fund, a St. Baldrick's Hero Fund created in memory of Holden Gilkinson and honors his unconquerable spirit in his battle with bilateral Wilms tumor by funding cures and treatments to mitigate side and late effects of childhood cancer.