Robert Lee receives university Accelerator Award to validate and develop cancer therapy drug

Robert Lee, PhD, professor of pharmaceutics and pharmacology was awarded $100,000 to further study and develop cancer therapeutic, human serum albumin (HSA)-SN-38 Conjugate, also known as AlbuCure.

Accelerator Awards are grants from The Ohio State University Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship that support external validation and de-risking research to validate and show commercial viability of technology. The goal of the grants is to “accelerate the advancement of cutting-edge Ohio State innovations from the university into the marketplace.”

This new project seeks to confirm research findings from Dr. Lee and Terence Williams, MD, PhD, professor and chair of the department of radiation oncology for the City of Hope. Their work looked at the role caveolin-1, a protein found in the body, played and its response to cancer therapy. Through the study, Drs. Lee and Williams found that HSA-SN-38 Conjugate performed well against caveolin-1.

Previous studies have found human serum albumin (HSA) is the most abundant protein found in human blood and several properties of HSA make it an appropriate candidate as a drug carrier in developing novel chemotherapeutics. For example, HSA has a strong compatibility with water and allows otherwise insoluble compounds to be dissolved in clinically compatible solvents. HSAs also naturally target tumors and are readily internalized by tumor cells via caveolae-mediated endocytosis, a process where substances pass through cells.

Following this finding, Drs. Lee and Williams tested over 30 different formulations of HSA for chemotherapies and identified HSA SN-38 as a compound with high potency. The compound, newly created in the study, is robustly stable and water soluble while maintaining high potency relative to other chemotherapy drugs such as irinotecan. It demonstrates significant efficacy in both in in vitro, trials done outside the body, and in vivo, within the body.

“Albumin-SN-38 conjugate has strong potency,” Dr. Lee said. “Cancers that are highly resistant tend to also have high levels of caveolin-1. Developing this drug and validating our research is important to gain greater confidence in what the drug can do and open the doors to the commercialization of the product.”