Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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FACBC

FDA approves Emory-developed cancer imaging probe

A cancer imaging agent that was originally developed at Emory was approved on Friday, May 27 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Axumin, a PET (positron emission tomography) imaging agent, is indicated for diagnosis of recurrent prostate cancer in men who have elevated PSA levels after previous treatment. Axumin, now being commercialized by UK-based Blue Earth Diagnostics, is also known as 18F-fluciclovine or FACBC (an abbreviation for anti-1-amino-3-[18F]fluorocyclobutane-1- carboxylic acid).

goodman-schuster

Mark Goodman, PhD (left) and David Schuster, MD (right)

Imaging using axumin/fluciclovine is expected to help doctors detect and localize recurrent prostate cancer, and could guide biopsy or the planning of additional treatment. Fluciclovine was originally developed at Emory by Mark Goodman and Timothy Shoup, who is now at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The earliest research on fluciclovine in the 1990s was on its use for imaging brain tumors, and it received a FDA “orphan drug” designation for the diagnosis of glioma in 2015. About a decade ago, Emory researchers stumbled upon fluciclovine’s utility with prostate cancer, while investigating its activity in a patient who appeared to have renal cancer, according to radiologist David Schuster, who has led several clinical studies testing fluciclovine.

“This led us to see if this radiotracer would be good for looking at prostate cancer, specifically because of its low native urinary excretion,” Schuster is quoted as saying in the radiology newsletter Aunt Minnie. “If you look at the history of medical science, it is taking advantage of the unexpected.”

Early research on the probe was supported by Nihon Mediphysics, and later support for clinical research on FACBC/fluciclovine came from the National Cancer Institute, the Georgia Research Alliance and the Georgia Cancer Coalition. [Both Emory and Goodman are eligible to receive royalties from its commercialization]. Additional information here.

References for two completed studies on fluciclovine in recurrent prostate cancer

Odewole OA et al. Comparison with CT imaging (2016) 

Schuster DM et al. Head to head comparison with ProstaScint (2014). Read more

Posted on June 6, 2016 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer Leave a comment

Promising probe for detecting recurrent prostate cancer

Part of the new Winship magazine feature on prostate cancer focuses on a PET imaging probe called FACBC, which was developed by radiologists at Emory. 18F-FACBC (anti-1-amino-3-[18F]fluorocyclobutane-1-carboxylic acid, also called “fluciclovine”) has a lengthening track record in detecting recurrent prostate cancer.

Structure of FACBC, from patent application.

Usually in PET imaging, radioactive glucose is injected into the body, and since cancer cells have a sweet tooth, they take up a lot of the radioactive tracer. But plenty of the tracer also appears in the urine, complicating prostate cancer detection efforts, since the prostate is so close to the bladder. In contrast, FACBC is readily taken up by prostate cancer cells, but doesn’t appear as much in urine.

Because of space considerations, we did not include David Schuster’s description of how FACBC’s utility in prostate was first discovered. Several years ago, he and Mark Goodman had begun investigating the probe’s potential in imaging brain tumors and kidney tumors, and used it with a patient with a large renal mass and many enlarged lymph nodes, as described in the radiology newsletter Aunt Minnie. Read more

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Quinn Eastman in Cancer Leave a comment