Cancer treatments have improved significantly over the years, so patients now have more options and live longer. With these improvements, doctors often have to weigh the benefits of each treatment against the potential risks of long-lasting negative effects.
Arabella Young, a University of Utah microbiology and immunology assistant professor, hopes to improve the immune system’s ability to kill cancer without causing those side effects and works to develop new therapeutic options in her lab.
“I really hope that we're able to identify tailored therapeutic strategies that are personalized for each patient so that we can improve therapeutic efficacy without causing toxicities,” Young said.
Young is specifically interested in toxicities that affect endocrine organs and diseases that can develop like autoimmune diabetes, thyroid disease and more. These issues are non-resolving, and patients might develop them as a result of certain cancer treatments, particularly those that improve the function of the immune system known as immunotherapies. These potential side effects complicate the process of evaluating the benefits and downsides of each treatment.
“As more treatment options become available, we're going to need to be more specific about who we're targeting, our aim is to develop risk prediction strategies for tumor response versus toxicity, so that we can understand who is most likely to benefit without negative side effects,” Young said. “This would then allow patients to make informed decisions about the selectivity of their therapeutic options as well.”
In her search for new treatment options, Young found something that could potentially limit the negative effects without impacting the tumor fighting properties of a new type of cancer treatment called immunotherapy. As she was preparing to present her data at a national conference, a colleague asked if she had disclosed her findings to the Technology Licensing Office.
Young had never disclosed her research before, but after reaching out to the TLO team, she went ahead and disclosed her research just one week before her presentation. The TLO team was able to evaluate her findings, consult with external patent experts and determine that no specific intellectual property protections would be necessary, all in time for Young to successfully present her research.
“Even though we didn't go through with patenting in the end, it was really helpful for me to see the team’s thinking about why certain products may or may not need protection,” Young said. “I do have some other novel hits in the pipeline, so this also gave me an opportunity to ask a lot of questions. What evidence do you need to see to determine a competitive commercial target? How does that process look if it was to be successful?”
After this first experience, Young hopes to help students and trainees learn about the tech transfer process, so they can have a leg up that she didn’t have. “It's training I never received growing up scientifically but given how the cancer immunotherapy research space is evolving and the collaborative way that research is done these days with industry partners, understanding the potential commercial impact of our findings is essential, getting our trainees involved and thinking about it early is really helpful, especially since they are seeing these discoveries first,” Young said.
