Moffitt Receives $3 Million to Develop New Targeted Treatments for Rare Melanomas
Source: News wise, September 2023
Newswise — TAMPA, Fla. — Moffitt Cancer Center has been awarded a four-year, $3 million grant from the Department of Defense’s Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs to develop new treatments for rare melanomas, including uveal melanoma. The grant will fund two projects aimed at advancing targeted alpha-particle therapies.
Uveal melanoma is an extremely rare cancer of the eye. Fewer than 3,500 Americans are diagnosed with the disease each year, and half of those patients will develop metastatic disease. There is only one approved drug to treat metastatic uveal melanoma, but it doesn’t work for all patients, and many develop a resistance to the treatment over time.
Researchers in Moffitt’s Donald A. Adam Melanoma and Skin Cancer Center of Excellence have developed a novel targeted alpha-particle therapy to treat uveal melanoma. Already being evaluated in a phase 1 clinical trial, the targeted alpha-particle therapy is a single injection that delivers a highly concentrated dose of radiation directly to the melanoma cells by targeting a protein found on the surface of those cells. This approach reduces toxicity to surrounding healthy tissues.