SENTRI

Motivation

Radiopharmaceutical therapies (RPT) are an emerging class of treatments whereby radioactive isotopes are conjugated to cancer-targeting molecules to systemically and selectively radiate cancer cells, and hence have the ability to treat metastatic disease. Precision delivery of radiation, systemically, has widely improved patient prognosis in late-stage and metastatic cancer patients, but RPT efficacy and safety remains hindered by suboptimal dosing to the lesions of interest and overdosing of organs at risk (OAR) respectively. This is driven by an inability to continually monitor, personalize, and adjust dosing to maximize radiation dose to the lesions of interest and minimize radiation dose to critical OARs. Understanding the optimal dose to deliver to each patient undergoing RPT remains an important yet elusive goal due to (A) vast patient-to-patient, organ-to-organ, and lesion-to-lesion heterogeneity in RPT uptake and excretion, precluding accurate prediction of dose distribution, (B) the long radionuclide half-life and variability in retention, precluding a single dosimetry measurement from accurately measuring total integrated dose (to guide subsequent doses), and (C) the infeasibility of SPECT/CT-based dosimetry at multiple time points due to its lack of universal availability, and the time, cost, and logistical constraints of multiple, precisely timed, hospital visits in rapid succession. 

Our Solution

We are developing chip-scale sensors capable of single particle radionuclide detection, able to continuously track the bio-distribution of theranostics across all tumors and organs at risk. The ultra small form-factor frees patients from the hospital, and enables the real-time continuous dosimetry needed for this emerging therapy.