Featured Technologies   View all Featured Technologies Diagnostic and Therapeutic Strategies for Metastatic Hepatocellular Carcinoma by Targeting Osteopontin Description of Technology: Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in United States and it is estimated that there will be more than half a million deaths caused by cancer in 2006. For the last decade breast and prostate cancer survival rate has significantly increased thanks to contribution of screening, early detection and novel therapeutics. This success needs to be translated to other cancers as well, where there is a need of novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for successful disease management Osteopontin (OPN) is a well known serum prognostic marker for breast cancer. This technology identifies a 10 kD residue of OPN as a potential prognostic marker and therapeutic target for metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Mechanistically, OPN has been shown to be a novel substrate for MMP-9 and the 10kD fragment is demonstrated to be a mediator of cell invasion and metastasis. Short synthetic peptides against OPN have been shown to block OPN mediated cell invasion, providing a novel therapeutic approach targeting OPN. Finally, polyclonal antibodies against the 10kD fragment of OPN have been developed that can be used for detection of OPN in physiological fluids of HCC patients. This technology provides a novel therapeutic and diagnostic strategy for the management of HCC patients using OPN. Development Status: The technology is in the pre-clinical stage, animal studies are under way. Inventors: Vivian A. Takafuji (NCI) et al. Publications: J Kim, SS Ki, SD Lee, CJ Han, YC Kim, SH Park, SY Cho, YJ Hong, HY Park, M Lee, HH Jung, KH Lee, SH Jeong. Elevated plasma osteopontin levels in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. Am J Gastroenterol. 2006 Sep;101(9):2051-2059. [PubMed abs] QH Ye, LX Qin, M Forgues, P He, JW Kim, AC Peng, R Simon, Y Li, AI Robles, Y Chen, ZC Ma, ZQ Wu, SL Ye, YK Liu, ZY Tang, XW Wang. Predicting hepatitis B virus-positive metastatic hepatocellular carcinomas using gene expression profiling and supervised machine learning. Nat Med. 2003 Apr;9(4):416-423. [PubMed abs] Patent Status: DHHS Reference No. E-201-2006/0 -- U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/805,298 filed 20 Jun 2006 PCT Application No. PCT/US2007/071712 filed 20 Jun 2007, which published as WO 2007/149948 on 27 Dec 2007 Licensing Status: This technology is available for licensing under an exclusive or non-exclusive patent license. Collaborative Research Opportunity: The NCI Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis is seeking statements of capability or interest from parties interested in collaborative research to further develop, evaluate, or commercialize diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma. Please contact John D. Hewes, Ph.D. at 301-435-3121 or hewesj@mail.nih.gov for more information. Portfolios: Cancer - Diagnostics, in vitro, DNA based Cancer - Diagnostics, in vivo, other Cancer - Therapeutics, immunoconjugates, MAb For additional information, please contact: Whitney Hastings Office of Technology Transfer National Institutes of Health 6011 Executive Boulevard, Suite 325 Rockville MD 20852 Phone: 301/451-7337 Fax: 301/402-0220 Email: hastingw@mail.nih.gov