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| Swaminathan Padmanabhan, M.D., a hematologist and assistant professor of medicine, helped stabilize Diane Rodriguez using the new drug STA-9090 while she waits for a matching bone marrow donor. | |
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Diane Rodriguez had been fighting leukemia with traditional therapies and a stem cell transplant since she was diagnosed in 2004. All had failed, and the Seguin woman was getting sicker and sicker. When her white blood cell count soared and her spleen began to swell, her doctor told her about a Phase I study at the Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
Rodriguez joined the drug study under the supervision of Swaminathan Padmanabhan, M.D., a hematologist and clinical investigator at the CTRC’s Institute for Drug Development. After some chemotherapy sessions with the experimental drug, Rodriguez stabilized, both in her white blood cell count and in her life.
Return to normal life activities“I was able to do things like yard work and detailing my car that that I couldn’t do before,” Rodriguez said. “It got to where I was getting my strength back. I could go visit my sister in Abilene.”
After two months on the drug, Rodriguez’s white blood cell count began to rise again, and Dr. Padmanabhan filed for a special single-patient FDA approval so she could receive a higher dose of the drug. She stabilized again. Dr. Padmanabhan is an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine's Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology.
Heat shock protein promotes leukemia The body unwittingly helps leukemia advance through a type of protein called a heat shock protein. The heat shock protein helps protect cells and stabilize newly produced proteins — and this unfortunately includes the Wilms tumor protein (WT1), found in all types of acute myeloid leukemia. Its presence correlates with disease progression: the more WT1 you have, the sicker you become.
New drug stops leukemia cell developmentThe drug, STA-9090, is currently under development by Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp. Although the drug must undergo more clinical trials, in the Phase I study CTRC researchers were able to show that the drug interferes with the heat shock protein’s ability to help WT1, stopping leukemia cell development and effectively killing the cell. Researchers were also able to show a new discovery: that WT1 interacts with a particular heat shock protein, HSP90.
Ultimately, the experimental drug helped Rodriguez survive during her wait for a bone marrow donor, and helped researchers better understand how to treat the bone marrow cancer by fighting the mechanisms that allow it to grow. That may help define novel therapeutic strategies in the future.
Research teamTwo other Health Science Center researchers involved in the study were Sanjay Bansal, Ph.D., assistant professor of research in the Department of Medicine, and Hima Bansal, Ph.D., a senior research associate at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute.
