Dr. Laird Forrest came to KU in hopes of helping real cancer patients. After a year at KU, he may be able to do just that in the near future. Dr. Forrest, assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry, has been researching more efficient and less harmful ways of delivering chemotherapy to cancer patients.
Dr. Forrest has a research team made up of two graduate students and two post-doctoral researchers. Together they are trying to combat different cancers by developing a successful localized chemotherapy.
“Right now cancer patients go in for surgery and the doctors do a pretty good job in removing most of the cancer,” Dr. Forrest said. “Afterwards the patient goes through chemotherapy or radiation which affects the whole body and makes the patient sick.”
Dr. Forrest is trying to localize the chemotherapy to just the affected portion of the body.
Taryn Bagby, Kansas City, Mo., graduate student “We want to limit how intensely the chemotherapy affects the entire body.” Dr. Forrest said. “The side affects of chemotherapy are terrible.”
The research team is also trying to limit the rate of relapses with their localized chemotherapy. Shuang Cai, graduate student, is working to decrease the deadly effects of breast cancer.
"Over 60 percent of women with localized breast cancer eventually develop distant late stage disease despite the excellent short-term prognosis with current treatments," Cai said.
In addition to Cai's research in breast cancer, the team is working on a number of other cancers . Dr. Forrest said they are working very closely with doctors from the KU Medical Center on colon cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and melanoma.
The research team is testing a number of different treatments. Some of the drugs are ready for animal testing. In this testing, they target a certain cancer in a rat or mouse and try to treat the animal in only the affected area.
The research team is testing a new localized chemotherapy treatment for lung cancer. The drug would be delivered to the affected area by an inhaler.
“It seemed logical to us to try an inhaler because that’s how we give our lungs cancer by smoking,” Dr. Forrest said.
In Yumei Xie's research, prostate cancer is localized and combatted. A polymer is conjugated to a drug or protein and delivered to the body.
"The polymer will shield the virus to transport in vivo and delivery specifically to prostate cancer cells," Xie, post-doctoral researcher, said.
Taryn Bagby, Kansas City, Mo., graduate student is working with melanoma. Bagby says the research is extremely difficult.
“The drug I’m working on is very, very unstable.” Bagby said. “Once you give it to a patient the drug becomes inactive after 15 minutes.”
Dr. Forrest confirms the difficulty in the research saying the research group makes constant pharmacy runs because of the instability of the drugs.
Despite the difficulty of the research, the team has seen some success. Their research in treating head and neck cancers is showing progress.
“We’re seeing extremely good results.” Dr. Forrest said. “The animal testing is showing excellent localization.”
Dr. Forrest believes the animal testing stage is nearly complete. He says the next step is phase 1 human testing.
“There are some barriers before we can get to that point such as getting approved by the FDA.” Dr. Forrest said. “But we are hoping we can start the phase 1 tests in early 2009.”
Lab mouse infected with different cancersDr. Forrest is not surprised by the success. He came KU last January from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. He said he chose KU among other institutions because he knew he could get real results here.
“I knew people at KU already had multiple cancer drugs on the market,” Dr. Forrest said.
While the results are not surprising to Dr. Forrest he says they are definitely rewarding. He has been researching cancer for 10 years and says it’s one of today’s top killers. He believes it’s become a top killer not because of a lifestyle change but because people are living longer.
“One out of three of us are going to get it,” Dr. Forrest said. “I’ve had family members that have died from it. It’s a horrible affliction that affects people it shouldn’t.”
Dr. Forrest says cancer is a treatable disease. He says he really wants to find a cure for cancer and just make it a disease rather than a killer.