Many wonderful and remarkable new technologies are discovered year after year at research institutions around the world. However, for scientists, advancing beyond the discovery stage to the market place can be extremely difficult.

“There are huge gaps from the research and development stage to the industry stage,” explained John Edwards, president of Apeliotus Technologies, a medical device and life sciences company dedicated to helping validate and commercialize product concepts.

Apeliotus, an Atlanta-based company, plays a transitional role in the whole process. “We take very promising, but early technologies, license them from universities and work with the inventors to help commercialize the product,” said Mr. Edwards.

In Augusta at the Medical College of Georgia (MCG), several doctors have made an important discovery in the treatment of lung cancer, and want to commercialize the new technology. However, in order to proceed with the process, they need to validate the product concept by improving their technology with more experimentation.

Support is coming in the form of a $60,000 matching research grant from the Life Sciences Innovation Center (LSIC)located at MCG. The grant,funded by the OneGeorgia Authority,will allow the doctors and Apeliotus to conduct more experiments and validate the product.

“The doctors at MCG took it to the discovery stage,” said Mr. Edwards. “Working as a team-the inventors and Apeliotus-with the help of the LSIC grant funds, we can translate the technology into an actual product – a radiosensitizer for lung cancer treatment.”

“This kind of project, seeking to translate a basic science discovery into an actual biomedical product, is exactly what MCG and the Life Sciences Innovation Center grant program is all about,” said Dr. Michael Gabridge, Director of LSIC. “We are delighted with the prospects for success with the radiosensitizer/lung cancer research and development effort.”

When treating lung cancer with radiation therapy, cancer cells are damaged by inducing DNA breaks. Lung tumors, like most cancer cells, can partially resist DNA breaks with a cellular repair system.

“We have invented a technology to manipulate the DNA repair process,” said Dr. Shuyi Li, co-inventor of the technology and an assistant research scientist with the Medical College of Georgia. “We developed a therapeutic antibody fragment that binds to a key DNA repair enzyme and sensitizes cancer cells to radiation.”

When the DNA repair system is inhibited, the cancer cells are left more susceptible to the radiation therapy; thus, the cancer cells are killed more effectively.

Why is this important for lung cancer patients? The five-year survival rate for lung cancer is only 15%. A majority of the patients receive radiation therapy; however, the normal lung tissue does not tolerate the radiation very well resulting in less effective treatment and lower survival rates compared to other cancers such as breast (88%) and prostate (99%).

In a state where lung cancer incidence is extremely high, especially among rural Georgians, this technology can have a tremendous impact.

“Our goal with this technology is three-fold,” said Dr. Li. “With a more effective treatment regiment for lung cancer patients, we hope to limit patient suffering, reduce medical expenses and of course, increase survival rates.”

To accomplish these goals, Dr. Li and Apelitous must go through a series of complex steps to make the antibody an effective radiosensitizer for commercialization.

The first critical step in the commercialization process is how to deliver the radiosensitizer to the cancer cells. The LSIC grant funds play a key role in the experiments to discover a clinically viable delivery mechanism for the antibody.

“This technology shows great promise,” said Mr. Edwards. “But how do you get it into the cancer cells? The delivery system is a key requirement to the commercialization of the radiosensitizer.”

The delivery system the doctors propose relies on fooling the cancer cells into thinking that the radiosensitizer or antibody is one of its favorite foods – folic acid. The antibody disguised as folic acid would bind or attach itself to the cell’s surface. The cell, thinking it is folic acid, would then gobble the antibody up allowing it into the cell to block DNA repair.

The development of the delivery phase, made possible by the research grant, will take another six months; the entire commercialization process may take another 2 to 4 years.

It is a race – both a marathon and a sprint. The marathon allows the doctors to conduct experiments on the radiosensitizer for commercialization. Once the radiosensitizer is a valid product, the sprint begins in the cells of lung cancer patients. The antibody must race to block the DNA, resulting in the death of the cells. The finish line could be very dramatic – a cure for lung cancer.