SBIR Phase I:Radioactive Gold Labeled Bio-Microspheres for Cancer Treatment

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to develop a novel, radiation delivery device as a safe and effective microbrachytherapy for the treatment of cancer. The radioactive gold labeled bio-microspheres will offer several advantages over the currently available systems. The advantages include 1) a lower density to achieve better biodistribution, 2) a radioisotope that allows therapeutic treatment, 3) a radioisotope that has imaging capability and 4) flexibility in patient treatment times due to on-site activation/preparation. None of the products on the market today incorporates all these advantages. Our team making this technology successful includes MO-SCI Corporation, the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR) and Wake IsoDose Technologies. The broader/commercial impacts of this research are that the viable new radiotherapy microsphere can be safely used to treat patients with malignant tumors (cancer), rheumatoid arthritis, and related diseases; and that the technology combines features that interventional radiologists and radiation oncologists have both wanted for years but no product yet offers. The radiogold labeled bio-microsphere technology offers both a diagnostic as well as a therapeutic radioisotope in one product, simplifying the overall treatment process by reducing the number of invasive therapies required to treat the patient as effectively as possible. All other therapies only offer one feature or the other.