Cancer is one of the most deadly diseases afflicting mankind, with nearly one in three people suffering from cancer sometime in their life.  While chemotherapy and radiation therapies have allowed some people suffering from the disease to lead normal lives or even recover, they are extremely caustic and damage the body's organs.

Now Kevin C. Chen, an assistant professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at the Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering, is leading a project to develop and evaluate less-damaging treatments, leveraging the power of modern computing and advanced computational techniques.

"Cancer is a disease of tremendous complexity, so the analysis and interpretation of data demands sophisticated, specialized computational methods," said Mr. Chen.

Mr. Chen is currently processing a group of drugs called recombinant immunotoxins.  The drugs, also currently being assessed in clinical trials consist of an unusual duo -- an antibody, bound to a toxin from natural sources such as bacteria, fungi, or plants. 

"Once injected into the body, the antibody portion of the immunotoxin targets specific proteins, called antigens, that are massively expressed on the surface of cancer cells,” explained Mr. Chen.  “These cells are subsequently killed by the accompanying toxins. Normal, healthy cells, meanwhile, are not recognized and thus are spared."

However a number of factors can decrease the new drugs' effectiveness.  Mr. Chen is hoping his research can pinpoint why these failures occur and help prevent them.

One common reason for failure is size -- often the molecules are too big to bond to cancer cells -- thus one line of research is to make them smaller.  Also the molecules need to be stable enough to circulate in the bloodstream and around in the tumor; work is being done to fine tune the stability.  Also bonding rates of the antigens is also a concern.  Too much bonding can deplete the drug levels, while too little can fall short of killing the cell.

All of these problems are being broken down by Mr. Chen in his tests.  By examining various member drugs, he can class them by their effectiveness.  He is also looking at possible modifications to aid in efficacy.

"Because the level of anticancer drug doses that can be given to any patient is limited by immunogenicity -- the immune response that results -- it is essential to explore how the efficacy of recombinant immunotoxins can be enhanced without resorting to escalating doses," he explained.  "Our computational research has enabled us to quantify and develop models describing many of the factors that influence immunotoxins' behavior in the body. This is essential knowledge that cancer researchers and doctors must have in order to take the next steps forward in developing immunotoxin drugs that might one day be approved as a standard treatment for cancer patients."

He is currently working with FSU postdoctoral researchers Junho Kim and Xinmei Li and molecular biologist Byungkook Lee of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.  They published a paper, "Modeling Recombinant Immunotoxin Efficacies in Solid Tumors", which appeared in the March 2008 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Biomedical Engineering.