Under the leadership of Dr. Mintz, the goal of the Brain Tumor Center of Excellence (BTCOE) Biomolecular Imaging Laboratory is to utilize multimodality molecular imaging to personalize biomarker targeted therapies by non-invasively detecting and quantifying the targeted tumor biomarkers/pathways. This individualized approach will tailor a therapeutic regiment by determining which and how much targeted therapeutic agent will be effective based on the presence a particular biomarker or dysregulated pathway. The imaging laboratory works in an integrated fashion with the recognized experts of the BTCOE in areas including local drug delivery to brain cancer, molecular targeting, biomarker discovery and therapeutic effects on normal brain.
One focus of the laboratory involves delivering diagnostic and therapeutic radioisotopes specifically to infiltrating malignant brain tumors but not to the normal brain cells by targeting tumor restricted biomarkers or pathways. Our lead agents target IL13Ra2, a malignant brain tumor restricted biomarker that was discovered by the Debinski laboratory (WFU) to be overexpressed in the vast majority high grade astrocytomas but not in normal brain tissue. We are currently in the process of developing a promising novel tumor-targeted scaffolding that can be used to deliver molecular radiation and immunetherapies to infiltrating tumor cells that are untouched by conventional therapies and responsible for the inevitable tumor recurrence.