From Scientific Breakthroughs to Cancer Treatments

MARKEY PATIENTS RECEIVE TOMORROW’S
INNOVATIVE THERAPIES TODAY

Targeted therapies have revolutionized cancer treatment over the past decade. New treatments focus on specific molecules and proteins that can find and eliminate cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissue.

The UK Markey Cancer Center is leading the way in researching and offering these groundbreaking treatments, giving patients more treatment options when they need them most. 

"Instead of using a hand grenade and throwing it into a room to kill cancer cells, it’s like sending a heat-seeking missile that knows exactly where to go,” said Susanne Arnold, MD, acting associate director of clinical translation.

The Promise of BiTE

One leading-edge targeted therapy being explored at Markey is Bispecific T-cell Engager (BiTE), which helps combat the ability of cancer cells to hide from the body’s immune cells. BiTE therapy can bridge the gap between cancer cells and immune cells, called T cells, for patients with small cell lung cancer and other cancers.

“BiTEs are essentially two-armed antibodies that can bring together two cells by attaching one arm to a protein on a cancer cell and another protein on a T cell,” said Zhonglin Hao, MD, PhD, co-leader of Markey’s Thoracic Oncology Program. Once the BiTEs bind to both cells, the T cells can get to work destroying the cancer cells.

BiTE therapy has shown promise for patients who didn’t respond to other treatments, like chemotherapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors. But researchers need to do more tests, Hao said.

Other innovative new treatments offered to patients through clinical trials at Markey include:

• CAR T-cell therapy: CAR T-cell therapy has changed how many blood cancers are treated. Markey also has trials testing how it treats solid tumors, like small cell lung cancer, when it recurs.
• Radiopharmaceutical therapies: These therapies use special adaptor molecules that can stick to cancer cells and deliver a radioactive drug designed to kill the cancer.

Benefits Well Beyond Markey

Markey researchers also participate in the National Cancer Institute’s Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network (ETCTN), helping deliver the next generation of targeted therapies to patients. The research conducted in Kentucky will aid patients nationwide and around the world.

“It’s an exciting time because the advances are making a meaningful difference in cancer patients,” said John L. Villano, MD, PhD, director of Clinical Neuro-oncology.

MARKEY SURGICAL ONCOLOGIST
EARNS RESEARCH AWARD

A Markey surgeon and researcher has received a prestigious award aimed at supporting early-stage scientists in their development as clinical trials investigators.

Veronica Morgan Jones, MD, received the Career Development Award from the Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials Award Program. The program was created to expand clinical trials access to the underrepresented communities most likely to get the diseases being studied.

Markey will receive $120,000 annually for two years to allow Jones to devote 40 percent of her time to learning about community-oriented clinical trials.

Jones will work closely with her mentor, Reema Patel, MD, associate program director of Markey’s Hematology and Medical Oncology Fellowship, and actively participate in Patel’s clinical trials. Jones wants to use her Winn program experiences to create a pilot study for triple-negative breast cancer.