ICYMI: Peter Mac's "liquid radiation" prostate cancer treatment in the news
1 min read 05 April 2023
The Peter Mac team that pioneered a new treatment for advanced prostate cancer, and was recently granted USD $10 million by the US' Prostate Cancer Foundation, is again making headlines.
The Australian Financial Review newspaper on the weekend published a feature article on the work of ProsTIC - the Prostate Theranostics and Imaging Centre of Excellence at Peter Mac.
The story explains how the injectable "liquid radiation" treatment - known as Lu-PSMA - travels through a patient's body and selectively binds to, and kills, prostate cancer cells wherever they are found.
The ProsTIC team - led by Professor Michael Hofman and including radiopharmaceutical scientist Dr Mohammad Haskali - is now working on a next-gen version that would be both more potent and targeted.
It hoped the next-gen treatment could be effective against a wide array of cancers, not only prostate cancer.
Quoted in the AFR story is Dr Howard Soule, who is executive vice president and chief science officer of the US Prostate Cancer Foundation.
Dr Soule recently flew from the US to Melbourne to check-in with the ProsTIC team and he told the AFR it was "everything you'd want to see from a philanthropic investment".
"It's not the largest radio-pharmacy in the world, but there is no more intelligent facility," Dr Soule says.
"It almost brings tears to my eye to see how far they have come in a relatively short period."
Dr Soule also notes the "research excellence at Peter Mac has been on our radar screen for a very long time".
Read the story in full - see the AFR story or via the AFR's twitter.
Read about the US PCF's US $10 million grant for Prostic as announcd in December last year - see the announcement.