MEDIA ADVISORY
| WHAT: | Opening reception for the Washington University Consortium for Translational Research in Advanced Imaging and Nanomedicine (C-TRAIN) |
| WHEN: | Friday, October 20, 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. |
| WHERE: | Center of Research Translation and Entrepreneurial Exchange (CORTEX) Building, 4320 Forest Park Avenue (at Boyle Street), Suite 101 |
Advance Tours Are Available For News Media
Moving new technology from the laboratory to patients’ bedsides takes more than just a clever idea. It often requires the combined expertise of university researchers who develop the technology and industry scientists who understand what it takes to get innovations to the marketplace. That’s exactly what two Washington University scientists had in mind when they created a consortium of experts from academia and industry. Their goal: to bring the promise of new technology to the public for the early detection and treatment of heart disease and cancer.
The Washington University Consortium for Translational Research in Advanced Imaging and Nanotechnology, or C-TRAIN for short, unites under one roof physicists, chemists, engineers, cell biologists, computer software engineers and physicians; the industrial powerhouses Bristol-Myers Squibb Medical Imaging, Philips Medical Systems, IBM Corp., Dow Chemical Co.; and a local biotechnology company, Kereos. This collaborative, open framework is designed to break down the physical barriers that separate academic and industry scientists and speed the development of more precise imaging agents and targeted therapies.
An opening reception for C-TRAIN will be held Friday, Oct. 20 in the CORTEX building at Forest Park Avenue and Boyle Street. Reporters who attend can preview powerful new technologies under development.
The consortium is the vision of Samuel A. Wickline, M.D., and Gregory M. Lanza, M.D., Ph.D. Both are professors of medicine and biomedical engineering at Washington University School of Medicine and heart specialists at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Together they developed microscopic beads called nanoparticles that have the potential to revolutionize the way cancer and heart disease are diagnosed and treated. The nanoparticle technology has been proven effective against cancer and cardiovascular disease in laboratory animals; human studies are expected to begin within a year.
“C-TRAIN provides a venue for investigators to pursue clinically relevant research in molecular imaging and nanomedicine for the benefit of patients,” says Wickline. “We not only want to collaborate with basic and clinical researchers but develop a fertile environment for transferring technology to industry partners in the St. Louis area and beyond.”
The consortium will focus on developing a broad range of technology, including nanotechnology. It is the umbrella organization for more than 40 researchers and staff and is supported by more than $23 million in federal grants and corporate partnerships.
“Nanotechnology has the potential to dramatically change the way patients are treated,” Lanza adds. “Care will be more targeted and individualized. C-TRAIN’s collaborative, multidisciplinary approach is likely to speed our ability to bring nanotechnology and other innovations to the marketplace.”
Nanotechnology is just one of the innovations being developed through C-TRAIN. It is poised to significantly improve the way health care is provided, especially in the areas of drug delivery and disease imaging. The microscopic beads developed by Wickline and Lanza are a few thousand times smaller than a period at the end of a sentence, but they pack a powerful punch.
The tiny spheres are designed to travel through the bloodstream to pinpoint disease deep within the body and illuminate tumors and other diseases undetectable by conventional methods. The nanoparticles could then be adapted to deliver a payload of therapeutic drugs exactly where they are needed. Physicians could also use the particles to confirm a drug has reached a desired location, measure the amount of drug at the site, and later check to see if the drug has affected the disease.
In the laboratory, Wickline and Lanza have used nanoparticles to locate tumors and artery-clogging plaques by attaching small homing molecules that recognize and bind to complementary molecules on the surface of target cells. In a study published in July, the researchers demonstrated that the nanoparticles could not only visualize plaques in the veins of rabbits but deliver a drug that zaps the growth of blood vessels that feed plaques. The rabbits received only a single dose of the drug – one that was 50,000 times lower than the dose used in an earlier experiment by another research group – but it reduced the growth of new blood vessels in plaques by 60 to 80 percent.
Washington University School of Medicine’s full-time and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.