Our Science – Pastan Website
Ira Pastan, M.D.
 |
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Biography
Dr. Pastan is chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Center for Cancer Research. He obtained his M.D. from Tufts University, received his medical training at Yale University and research training at the NIH. He established the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1970.Research
New Approaches to Cancer Treatment: Recombinant Immunotoxins
1.2 million Americans develop cancer each year and about 500,000 die from the disease. To improve the therapy of cancer new approaches and drugs with new mechanisms of action are needed. We are developing a treatment that incorporates both these principles. We employ genetic engineering to modify a potent bacterial toxin, which is designed to kill many different types of cells, to one that kills cancer cells.
Pseudomonas exotoxin A (PE)
is a three-domain protein composed of 613 amino acids. We have produced anti-cancer agents by deleting the binding domain of PE (aa 1-252), and replacing it with the Fv portion of an antibody that directs the toxin to a target on cancer cells. These agents are termed 'recombinant immunotoxins' (RITs). They kill cells by arresting protein synthesis, a mechanism not employed by other anti-cancer agents.
Several different recombinant immunotoxins have been developed in our laboratory and we are conducting clinical trials with 3 of them. Moxetumomab pasudotox (HA22) targets CD22 on B cell malignancies, LMB2 targets CD25 on T cell malignancies, and SS1P targets mesothelin present on mesothelioma and many other epithelial cancers (pancreas, ovary, lung, bile duct and triple negative breast cancer).
Moxetumomab pasudotox has produced complete remissions in many patients with drug resistant Hairy Cell Leukemia (HCL) and has also shown anti-tumor activity in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Moxetumomab pasudotox is licensed to MedImmune LLC and they are sponsoring clinical trials in leukemias and lymphomas expressing CD22.
SS1P is being evaluated in clinical trials in mesothelioma, where it is combined with chemotherapy. Laboratory studies have shown striking synergy when SS1P is combined with several different chemotherapeutic agents.
Because the toxin portion of RITs is a foreign protein, patients with solid tumors who have normal immune function usually make antibodies to the RITs and inactivate them, limiting their efficacy. Antibody formation is much less frequent and much less of an issue in patients with hematological malignancies. To allow us to give more treatment cycles and achieve better anti-tumor activity, we have designed and produced new RITs in which the major B cell epitopes and T cell epitopes in the toxin have been identified and silenced. These new agents are being developed for clinical trials.
Collaborators on this research at NIH include David FitzGerald, Robert Kreitman, Raffit Hassan, Tapan Bera, Masanori Onda, Wyndham Wilson, Byungkook Lee, Thomas Waldmann and Alan Wayne.
This page was last updated on 2/21/2013.
