MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov
Contact: Nancy Lovato (818) 354-0474
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 30, 2000
LEADING CANCER INSTITUTE TESTS NOVEL MONITORING TECHNIQUE
A cancer detection technique that uses an advanced sensor
developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, is
being tested by the prestigious Dana-Farber Cancer Institute,
Boston, MA, for its use in monitoring the effectiveness of cancer
treatment in patients.
The sensor is part of a device called the BioScan System™,
developed by OmniCorder Technologies, Inc., Stony Brook, NY.
OmniCorder has been developing and testing the system for three
years and received Food and Drug Administration clearance to
market it in December.
"Since we announced the BioScan System's clearance by the
FDA, we have been inundated with requests to install and test the
unit in clinics and hospitals across the country and overseas for
a variety of cancer as well as other disease applications," said
OmniCorder president and CEO Mark Fauci. "We selected the Dana-
Farber site because we feel that this center could best help us
to have the largest and most immediate impact on improving cancer
treatment."
The application at Dana-Farber is different from those that
have been tested at other sites. The BioScan System™ has been
used to locate and confirm the presence of a cancerous breast
lesion by detecting the cancer's ability to recruit new blood
supply -- one of the hallmarks of a malignant lesion. The goal of
the Dana-Farber research is to evaluate the BioScan System's
ability to monitor biological effects of cancer treatment and to
help physicians detect treatment-induced changes in cancerous
lesions of the breast, skin and other organs. Armed with this
information, they can better determine effectiveness of the
treatments.
Dana-Farber is testing several new classes of anti-cancer
products, including some -- called antiangiogenesis factors --
specifically designed to limit cancer growth by inhibiting its
blood supply. (Angiogenesis is the formation and differention of
blood vessels.) The BioScan System™ was designed to detect
minute changes in blood supply to cancerous lesions and may help
doctors measure precisely any decrease in blood supply to the
cancer caused by these new treatments.
"Current technologies to monitor the effects of cancer
treatment might miss important biologic and clinical effects,
especially of newer treatment strategies such as antiangiogenesis
approaches and drugs to induce differentiation," said Dr. George
D. Demetri, medical director, Center for Sarcoma and Bone
Oncology, Department of Adult Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Drs. Demetri and
Milos Janicek, from Dana-Farber's diagnostic oncoradiology
division, will be co-principal investigators in the study.
"The technology harnessed by BioScan -- if it proves what we
hope it will -- has the potential to provide this ability for
researchers and clinicians who might otherwise miss subtle yet
important effects of new drugs," Demetri said. "By doing so, it
could have a substantial effect on developing new therapeutic
approaches to cancer, such as directing researchers to optimize
biologically active doses and even reducing the time it takes to
demonstrate a drug's efficacy for FDA registration. It will be
important to correlate the findings of this technology with
clinical outcomes. With this type of tool, it is conceivable that
once a drug has been approved, the same technology would allow us
to monitor and individualize cancer treatment on a patient-by-
patient basis."
OmniCorder is exclusively licensed by JPL to use the sensor
technology, called Quantum Well Infrared Photodetector, and also
holds licenses from other organizations. OmniCorder is a leading
developer of non-invasive infrared disease detection systems. The
JPL sensor has also been used in terrestrial applications, such
as locating hot spots during fires, and it has potential uses for
search and rescue, spotting faulty welds and blockages, and
volcano observation. It also will fly sometime in the next
several months on a small space technology research vehicle
mission to detect the severity of radiation in the Van Allen Belt.
JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena.
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