Professor Borden Wins NIH Grant

Chemical Engineering Assistant Professor Mark Borden has won a $380,000 grant to continue research on improving detection and treatment of tumors.

 

Borden (far left in photo at left) is part of a multi-disciplinary team from the Columbia University Medical Center that includes Dr. Jessica Kandel (center), associate professor of surgery, and Dr. Darrell Yamashiro (far right), associate professor of pediatrics.

 

 

 

The grant is an Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Award from the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. It will allow the team to develop microbubble formulations and ultrasound imaging techniques to improve how tumors are detected and treated.

 

Microbubbles are tiny gas bubbles, about the size of red blood cells, which get injected into the bloodstream.

 

“Their gas cores provide strong echoes to ultrasound, thereby better contrasting blood vessels from tissue on the video screen,” Borden said. 

 

The funding will allow the team to develop microbubbles with greater signal consistency, he said.

 

“The microbubbles can be engineered to contain specific molecules that bind to diseased vasculature, such as that of tumors, thereby allowing not only an image of the anatomy but also the physiology at the molecular level,” he said.

Kandel and Yamashiro are experts in angiogenesis (growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones) in pediatric tumors.

 

“They are interested in the contrast ultrasound technology because it could provide them with information to better understand the response of tumors to therapy, and also to guide therapy by more quickly assessing how well a patient is responding to medication.” 

 

Kandel says the technology could allow the team to quickly and accurately detect responses to novel therapies that target tumors. 

 

“Patients with susceptible neoplasms could continue to receive treatment as long as they benefit,” she says, “and those with resistant tumors could more quickly be switched to alternative therapies. Overall, this modality may increase our ability to "tune" cancer treatment to the individual, increasing efficacy and decreasing exposure to ineffective treatments. Ultrasound is particularly attractive in pediatric oncology, since it involves no radiation exposure and does not require sedation – important considerations when examining children."