Steven Toms, MD
Awards
Advance-CTR Pilot Projects Program (2018)
"DEVELOPMENT OF SURFACE ENHANCED RESONANCE RAMAN SPECTROSCOPY NANOPROBES TO IL13R2α FOR SPECIFIC LABELLING OF GLIOMA"
CO-PI: Ou Chen, PhD (Contact PI)
Rhode Island has an unusually high incidence of gliomas when compared to national averages, concentrated in Providence and Bristol counties. Brain tumors such as gliomas require maximal safe surgical resection for optimal therapy but have indistinct borders and are difficult to detect visually or with intraoperative imaging. Gold particles including colloidal gold have been used in medical therapy for centuries without toxicity. Gold nanoparticles (NPs) may be developed and labelled to emit spectral signatures which may be detected with Raman spectroscopy, a portable, inexpensive, accurate detection method which may be developed into surgical probes to detect residual tumor invisible to currently available intraoperative techniques. The intravenous injection of NPs has been shown to localize into brain tumors through advanced permeability and retention in a nonspecific pattern which respects tumor borders with high correlation. However, intravenous injection of NPs targeted with antibody or other targeting moieties, has failed to achieve specific tumor targeting secondary to rapid uptake of particles and elimination via the reticuloendothelial system (RES). Development of techniques to deliver nanoparticles which could avoid RES sequestration and effectively