Interdisciplinary Initiatives Program Round 4 – 2008

Calvin Kuo, Medicine/Hematology
Hongjie Dai, Chemistry

The use of monoclonal antibodies has transformed the therapy of several types of malignancies, including breast, lung, colon and brain cancers, by allowing exquisitely precise targeting of receptors and ligands that function on the “surface” of the cancer cell. On the other hand, numerous proteins that are known to be critical for cancer development exist in the “interior” of the cancer cell and are therefore inaccessible to monoclonal antibody therapies. How can such important but “undruggable” intracellular proteins be targeted for cancer therapy? The groups of Calvin Kuo in the Department of Medicine and Hongjie Dai in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford have been working closely together to develop nanotechnology-based solutions to this problem.