Manhattan Scientifics, MD Anderson Test Cancer Diagnostics

(Cancer.gov)

27 January 2014. Medical technologies developer Manhattan Scientifics in Albuquerque and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston are collaborating on tests of a new device that the company says detects tumors thousands of times smaller than current technologies. Financial aspects of the deal between Manhattan’s subsidiary Senior Scientific LLC that developed the device and MD Anderson were not disclosed.

Senior Scientific’s technology combines iron-oxide nanoparticles with biomarkers to target and detect cancer cells at a much earlier stage than possible with current imaging methods, says the company, making it easier to treat or remove tumors with surgery or other therapies. The sensor, developed by Senior Scientific’s founder and chief scientist Edward Flynn (also a research professor at University of New Mexico), uses low-frequency magnetic fields that pass easily through tissue, and detect the magnetized iron-oxide nanoparticles coated with biomarkers linked to specific antibodies.

The antibodies bind to corresponding cancer targets, which changes their magnetic signatures, making them detectable and locatable by the Senior Scientific device, within 0.5 millimeters. The company says its sensor method is applicable to breast, ovarian, leukemia, prostate, melanoma, and other cancers, and is designed to avoid returning false-positive readings.

Under the agreement, MD Anderson is providing its detailed expertise on cancer to the partnership. Senior Scientific will provide MD Anderson with an advanced stage instrument during the first quarter of the year, making it the first institution to use the device in a research program. Senior Scientific says the company and MD Anderson already have an informal relationship going back two years that the new agreement formalizes.

Manhattan Scientifics is a technology transfer and commercialization company developing prosthetic and nano-medicine applications. The company says it has a “special informal relationship” with Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, both located in New Mexico.

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