A $3.2 million project to develop drugs for advanced melanoma
Shashi Gujar (MHA’14) is leading a rare $3.2 million project to develop new immunotherapy drugs for advanced melanoma.
A Dalhousie Medical School cancer immunologist has received a rare five-year operating grant from the U.S. NIH’s National Cancer Institute, in the amount of $3.2 million (Cdn).
“The success rate for this competition is often around 10 to 12 per cent,” says Dr. Shashi Gujar, an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology with a background in biotechnology and drug development. “So of course, we are ecstatic.”
Dr. Gujar is working with American-Canadian chemist Dr. Sherri McFarland, a professor at the University of North Carolina (and adjunct faculty member at Dalhousie and Acadia) on the NIH-funded project to develop new immunotherapies for advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.
The researchers have created photo-sensitive ruthenium metal-based compounds that can be applied to melanoma lesions on the skin. When activated by a specific wavelength of light, these compounds kill melanoma cells and, in the process, “teach” the immune system to recognize and eliminate metastatic cancer cells circulating in the body.
The idea is similar to a vaccine. “Once the immune system learns to target cancer on its own, it can establish long-term, cancer-free health — even after discontinuation of the therapy,” Dr. Gujar explains.
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