Imaging Biomarkers for Nanotherapeutics – Year two

Poor drug accumulation at tumor sites negatively affects the efficacy of many anti-cancer therapeutics. Development
of non-invasive strategies that can effectively monitor drug biodistribution is important, especially given the increasing
number and complexity of nanotherapeutic agents in clinical development. The use of positron emission tomography
in conjunction with a radiolabeled drug delivery system has the potential to achieve accelerated clinical translation.
Merrimack Pharmaceuticals focuses on the development of nanotherapeutic platforms for cancer therapy and
imaging. Their liposome-based chemotherapeutics have shown clinical benefit in breast and pancreatic cancer
patients. However, the overall efficacy of these compounds has been limited due to high inter-patient response
variability. Merrimack and our research group believe that the development of robust imaging-based methods to
quantify the drug distribution in patients can positively affect the therapeutic outcome as it allows for investigation of
patient-specific drug deposition and its potential for prediction of treatment response.

Faculty Supervisor:

Jinzi Zheng

Student:

Partner:

Merrimack Pharmaceuticals

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of Toronto

Program: