SYMBIOS TECHNOLOGIES INC. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: 102

Description

Despite significant advances in chemotherapeutic approaches due to new drugs and combinatorial therapies over the past decades cancer is still the second leading cause of death in the United States Further pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive and deadly cancer types with only a chance of patient survival five years past diagnosis In this Phase I SBIR proposal the Tubular Plasma ReactorTM TPR platform developed by Symbios Technologies Inc will be used to generate reactive plasma species in aqueous solutions via a low temperature plasma discharge This technology encompasses the formation of aqueous plasma chemotherapeutic APC solutions which are intended to be applied for selective pancreatic cancer cell modification to address critical cancer therapy needs The TPR platform enables the environmentally friendly production of APC to provide clinicians with the flexibility of multiple routes of administration The formation of plasma species within aqueous solutions sets TPR generated APC apart from other plasma based technologies More specifically previous work has shown that the use of gas phase plasma plumes directed on cell cultures resulted in the selective inhibition of pancreatic cancer cell growth while not harming normal endothelial cells However such gas phase plumes restrict the use to topical applications which are not useful for the treatment of internal tumors Preliminary data collected by Symbios Technologies employing TPR generated APC demonstrates the selective dose dependent treatment of cancer cells while normal cells remained viable across all doses Thus this proposal is focused on four major goals a optimize APC generation for maximum therapeutic efficacy b expand the investigation of APC to multiple pancreatic cancer lines that exhibit differences in resistance to the current standard treatment c quantify the relevant stable plasma species that contribute to the therapeutic action to inform mechanistic insights and to evaluate shelf life and serum scavenging and d identify the mechanism of action associated with APC inhibition of cancer cell growth Overall the APC preliminary data collected combined with previous literature regarding the therapeutic properties of plasma species supports the hypothesis that the TPR represents a viable platform for generating chemotherapeutic solutions Thus Symbios will be the first to combine aqueous plasma chemistry with chemotherapeutic effects to result in a commercially viable cancer treatment modality Completion of Phase I objectives will make possible in vivo animal cancer models in Phase II Because there is a great unmet need for improved pancreatic cancer treatments Symbios Technologies Inc is developing its promising new method for selectively killing cancer cells that uses an aqueous low temperature electric discharge plasma system Prior art demonstrates that cancer cells are selectively damaged by plasma plumes compared to normal cells but these gas phase plasmas are not practical for treating tumors inside the body The aqueous plasma chemotherapeutic solutions that are generated by Symbios technology platform to contain therapeutic plasma species show great promise to overcome a major hurdle in the field by representing a new pancreatic cancer treatment modality that demonstrates selective and dose dependent cancer cell inhibition as supported by preliminary data