Plasma Generation of Aqueous Chemotherapeutic Solutions

Despite significant advances in chemotherapeutic approaches due to new drugs and
combinatorial therapies over the past decades cancer is still the second leading cause of death
in the United States Further pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive and deadly cancer
types with only a chance of patient survival five years past diagnosis In this Phase I SBIR
proposal the Tubular Plasma ReactorTM TPR platform developed by Symbios Technologies
Inc will be used to generate reactive plasma species in aqueous solutions via a low temperature
plasma discharge This technology encompasses the formation of aqueous plasma
chemotherapeutic APC solutions which are intended to be applied for selective pancreatic
cancer cell modification to address critical cancer therapy needs The TPR platform enables the
environmentally friendly production of APC to provide clinicians with the flexibility of multiple
routes of administration The formation of plasma species within aqueous solutions sets TPR
generated APC apart from other plasma based technologies More specifically previous work
has shown that the use of gas phase plasma plumes directed on cell cultures resulted in the
selective inhibition of pancreatic cancer cell growth while not harming normal endothelial cells
However such gas phase plumes restrict the use to topical applications which are not useful for
the treatment of internal tumors Preliminary data collected by Symbios Technologies employing
TPR generated APC demonstrates the selective dose dependent treatment of cancer cells while
normal cells remained viable across all doses Thus this proposal is focused on four major goals
a optimize APC generation for maximum therapeutic efficacy b expand the investigation of
APC to multiple pancreatic cancer lines that exhibit differences in resistance to the current
standard treatment c quantify the relevant stable plasma species that contribute to the
therapeutic action to inform mechanistic insights and to evaluate shelf life and serum scavenging
and d identify the mechanism of action associated with APC inhibition of cancer cell growth
Overall the APC preliminary data collected combined with previous literature regarding the
therapeutic properties of plasma species supports the hypothesis that the TPR represents a viable
platform for generating chemotherapeutic solutions Thus Symbios will be the first to combine
aqueous plasma chemistry with chemotherapeutic effects to result in a commercially viable
cancer treatment modality Completion of Phase I objectives will make possible in vivo animal
cancer models in Phase II Because there is a great unmet need for improved pancreatic cancer treatments Symbios
Technologies Inc is developing its promising new method for selectively killing cancer cells that
uses an aqueous low temperature electric discharge plasma system Prior art demonstrates that
cancer cells are selectively damaged by plasma plumes compared to normal cells but these gas
phase plasmas are not practical for treating tumors inside the body The aqueous plasma
chemotherapeutic solutions that are generated by Symbios technology platform to contain
therapeutic plasma species show great promise to overcome a major hurdle in the field by
representing a new pancreatic cancer treatment modality that demonstrates selective and dose
dependent cancer cell inhibition as supported by preliminary data