Stomach cancer, also known as gastric cancer, is the fourth deadliest cancer. When it's diagnosed, it will have already spread throughout the abdomen in 4 out of 10 patients. Even patients that are diagnosed and treated before the cancer has spread, the cancer will return and spread throughout the abdomen in 6 out of 10 of those patients. After it has spread throughout the abdomen, it becomes incredibly difficult to treat. These patients, on average, only survive 3-6 months after the cancer has spread and no patients typically survive longer than 5 years. One treatment, which combines chemotherapy with drugs that train the immune system to destroy the cancer (immunotherapy), helps a little b...

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Stomach cancer, also known as gastric cancer, is the fourth deadliest cancer. When it's diagnosed, it will have already spread throughout the abdomen in 4 out of 10 patients. Even patients that are diagnosed and treated before the cancer has spread, the cancer will return and spread throughout the abdomen in 6 out of 10 of those patients. After it has spread throughout the abdomen, it becomes incredibly difficult to treat. These patients, on average, only survive 3-6 months after the cancer has spread and no patients typically survive longer than 5 years. One treatment, which combines chemotherapy with drugs that train the immune system to destroy the cancer (immunotherapy), helps a little by allowing patients to live for up to 10-17 months. However; this is still not enough, and patients are in dire need for treatments that help them live longer. Our team is developing a new treatment known as "Photo-betabody immunotherapy" that can educate the immune system to destroy stomach cancer more efficiently after it has spread. This treatment uses a light-activated drug complexed with an engineered protein that targets only the stomach cancer cells that have spread throughout the abdomen, while sparing all the healthy organs. The light-activated drug is developed by Dr. Girgis Obaid at UT Dallas and the engineered protein is developed by Dr. Rolf Brekken at UT Southwestern Medical Center. The drug complexed with the engineered protein will be injected directly into the abdomen and will be activated with red light using a small fiber optic inserted with a small needle. The objective of this project is to develop our light activated approach and use it to improve existing immunotherapy that is currently being used on patients with stomach cancer. If successful, our approach can ultimately help patients with stomach cancer live longer after after the cancer has spread.

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