Rice University Researchers Are Developing an Implantable Cancer Therapeutic Device That May Reduce Cancer Deaths by Half
Immunotherapy device could also enable clinical laboratories to receive in vivo biomarker data wirelessly
Researchers from Rice University in Houston and seven other states in the US are working on a new oncotherapy sense-and-respond implant that could dramatically improve cancer outcomes. Called Targeted Hybrid Oncotherapeutic Regulation (THOR), the technology is intended primarily for the delivery of therapeutic drugs by monitoring specific cancer biomarkers in vivo.
Through a $45 million federal grant from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), the researchers set out to develop an immunotherapy implantable device that monitors a patient’s cancer and adjusts antibody treatment dosages in real time in response to the biomarkers it measures.
It’s not a far stretch to envision future versions of the THOR platform also being used diagnostically to measure biomarker data and transmit it wirelessly to clinical laboratories and anatomic pathologists.
ARPH-A is a federal funding agency that was established in 2022 to support the development of high-impact research to drive biomedical and health breakthroughs. THOR is the second program to receive funding under its inaugural Open Broad Agency Announcement solicitation for research proposals.
“By integrating a self-regulated circuit, the THOR technology can adjust the dose of immunotherapy reagents based on a patient’s responses,” said Weiyi Peng, MD, PhD (above), Assistant Professor of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Houston and co-principal investigator on the research, in a UH press release. “With this new feature, THOR is expected to achieve better efficacy and minimize immune-related toxicity. We hope this personalized immunotherapy will revolutionize treatments for patients with peritoneal cancers that affect the liver, lungs, and other organs.” If anatomic pathologists and clinical laboratories could receive biometric data from the THOR device, that would be a boon to cancer diagnostics. (Photo copyright: University of Houston.)
Antibody Therapy on Demand
Omid Veiseh, PhD, Associate Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University and principal investigator on the project, described the THOR device as a “living drug factory” inside the body. The device is a rod-like gadget that contains onboard electronics and a wireless rechargeable battery. It is three inches long and has a miniaturized bioreactor that contains human epithelial cells that have been engineered to produce immune modulating therapies.
“Instead of tethering patients to hospital beds, IV bags, and external monitors, we’ll use a minimally invasive procedure to implant a small device that continuously monitors their cancer and adjusts their immunotherapy dose in real time,” said Veiseh in a Rice University press release. “This kind of ‘closed-loop therapy’ has been used for managing diabetes, where you have a glucose monitor that continuously talks to an insulin pump.
But for cancer immunotherapy, it’s revolutionary.”
The team believes the THOR device will have the ability to monitor biomarkers and produce an antibody on demand that will trigger the immune system to fight cancer locally. They hope the sensor within THOR will be able to monitor biomarkers of toxicity for the purpose of fine-tuning therapies to a patient immediately in response to signals from a tumor.
“Today, cancer is treated a bit like a static disease, which it’s not,” Veiseh said. “Clinicians administer a therapy and then wait four to six weeks to do radiological measurements to see if the therapy is working. You lose quite a lot of time if it’s not the right therapy. The tumor may have evolved into a more aggressive form.”
The THOR device lasts 60 days and can be removed after that time. It is designed to educate the immune system to recognize a cancer and prevent it from recurring. If the cancer is not fully eradicated after the first implantation, the patient can be implanted with THOR again.
Use of AI in THOR Therapy
The researchers plan to spend the next two and a half years building prototypes of the THOR device, testing them in rodents, and refining the list of biomarkers to be utilized in the device. Then, they intend to take an additional year to establish protocols for the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) good manufacturing practices requirements, and to test the final prototype on large animals. The researchers estimate the first human clinical trials for the device will begin in about four years.
“The first clinical trial will focus on refractory recurrent ovarian cancer, and the benefit of that is that we have an ongoing trial for ovarian cancer with our encapsulated cytokine ‘drug factory’ technology,” said Veiseh in the UH press release.
The group is starting with ovarian cancer because research in this area is lacking and it will provide the opportunity for THOR to activate the immune system against ovarian cancer, which is typically challenging to fight with immunotherapy approaches. If successful in ovarian cancer, the researchers hope to test THOR in other cancers that metastasize within the abdomen, such as:
- Bladder,
- Colorectal,
- Liver, and
- Pancreatic cancers.
All control and decision-making will initially be performed by a healthcare provider based on signals transmitted by THOR using a computer or smartphone. However, Veiseh sees the device ultimately being powered by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms that could independently make therapeutic decisions.
“As we treat more and more patients [with THOR], the devices are going to learn what type of biomarker readout better predicts efficacy and toxicity and make adjustments based on that,” he predicted. “Between the information you have from the first patient versus the millionth patient you treat, the algorithm is just going to get better and better.”
Moving Forward
In addition to UH and Rice University, scientists working on the project come from several institutions, including:
- University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Stanford University
- Carnegie Melon University
- Northwestern University
- John Hopkins University
- CellTrans
- Bruder Consulting and Venture Group
More research and clinical trials are needed before THOR can be used in the clinical treatment of cancer patients. If the device reaches the commercialization stage, Veiseh plans to either form a new company or license the technology to an existing company for further development.
“We know that the further we advance it in terms of getting that human data, the more likely it is that this could then be transferred to another entity,” he told Precision Medicine Online.
Pathologists and clinical laboratories will want to monitor the progress of the THOR technology’s ability to sense changes in cancer biomarkers and deliver controlled dosages of antibiotic treatments.
—JP Schlingman
Related Information:
UH Researcher on Team Developing Sense-and-Respond Cancer Implant Technology
Feds Fund $45M Rice-Led Research That Could Slash US Cancer Deaths by 50%
$45M Awarded to Develop Sense-and-Respond Implant Technology for Cancer Treatment
Implantable Oncotherapeutic Bioreactor Device Lands $45M Government Funding
ARPA-H Fast Tracks Development of New Cancer Implant Tech
ARPA-H Announces Funding for Programs to Support Cancer Moonshot Objectives
ARPA-H Fast Tracks Development of New Cancer Implant Tech
Feds Investing Nearly $115 Million in Three New Cancer Technology Research Projects
Hopkins Engineers Join $45M Project to Develop Sense-and-Respond Cancer Implant Technology
ARPA-H Projects Aim to Develop Novel Cancer Technologies
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