Territo, Paul R.

AbstractThe tauopathies are defined by pathological tau protein aggregates within a spectrum of clinically heterogeneous neurodegenerative diseases. The primary tauopathies meet the definition of rare diseases in the United States. There is no approved treatment for primary tauopathies. In this context, designing the most efficient development programs to translate promising targets and treatments from preclinical studies to early‐phase clinical trials is vital. In September 2022, the Rainwater Charitable Foundation convened an international expert workshop focused on the translation of tauopathy therapeutics through early‐phase trials. Our report on the workshop recommends a framework for principled drug development and a companion lexicon to facilitate communication focusing on reproducibility and achieving common elements. Topics include the selection of targets, drugs, biomarkers, participants, and study designs. The maturation of pharmacodynamic biomarkers to demonstrate target engagement and surrogate disease biomarkers is a crucial unmet need.Highlights Experts provided a framework to translate therapeutics (discovery to clinical trials). Experts focused on the “5 Rights” (target, drug, biomarker, participants, trial). Current research on frontotemporal degeneration, progressive supranuclear palsy, and corticobasal syndrome therapeutics includes 32 trials (37% on biologics) Tau therapeutics are being tested in Alzheimer's disease; primary tauopathies have a large unmet need.

BackgroundDuctal features alone may not offer high diagnostic sensitivity or most accurate disease severity of chronic pancreatitis (CP).PurposeDiagnose CP based on multiparametric MRI and MRCP features.Study TypeProspective.PopulationBetween February 2019 and May 2021, 46 control (23 males, 49.3 ± 14.1 years), 45 suspected (20 males, 48.7 ± 12.5 years), and 46 definite (20 males, 53.7 ± 14.6 years) CP patients were enrolled at seven hospitals enrolled in the MINIMAP study. CP classification was based on imaging findings and clinical presentation.Field Strength and Sequences1.5 T. T1‐weighted (T1W) spoiled gradient echo, T1 map with variable flip angle, dual‐echo Dixon, secretin‐enhanced MRCP before and after secretin infusion.AssessmentDual‐echo fat fraction (FF), T1 relaxation time, extracellular volume (ECV), T1 signal intensity ratio of the pancreas to the spleen (T1 score), arterial‐to‐venous enhancement ratio (AVR), pancreatic tail diameter (PTD), pancreas volume, late gadolinium enhancement, pancreatic ductal elasticity (PDE), and duodenal filling grade of secretin‐enhanced MRCP were measured.Statistical TestsLogistic regression analysis generated CP‐MRI and secretin‐enhanced CP‐SMRI scores. Receiver operating characteristics analysis was used to differentiate definite CP from control. Interobserver agreement was assessed using Lin's concordance correlation coefficient.ResultsCompared to control, definite CP cohort showed significantly higher dual‐echo FF (7% vs. 11%), lower AVR (1.35 vs. 0.85), smaller PTD (2.5 cm vs. 1.95 cm), higher ECV (28% vs. 38%), and higher incidence of PDE loss (6.5% vs. 50%). With the cut‐off of >2.5 CP‐MRI score (dual‐echo FF, AVR, and PTD) and CP‐SMRI score (dual‐echo FF, AVR, PTD, and PDE) had cross‐validated area under the curves of 0.84 (sensitivity 87%, specificity 68%) and 0.86 (sensitivity 89%, specificity 67%), respectively. Interobserver agreement for both CP‐MRI and CP‐SMRI scores was 0.74.ConclusionThe CP‐MRI and CP‐SMRI scores yielded acceptable performance and interobserver agreement for the diagnosis of CP.Evidence Level1Technical EfficacyStage 2

Abstract Treatment of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) continues to be a challenge due to its infiltrative nature, tumor heterogeneity, and lack of therapeutic agents that penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB). While the primary tumor is permeable to some degree, the ability of GBM cells to invade areas of parenchyma with an intact BBB indicates development of BBB-penetrable compounds is a necessity. The multifunctional protein MDM2 holds promise as a therapeutic target in a variety of cancers and plays a critical role in controlling cell survival, invasion, and DNA repair. MDM2 antagonists such as nutlin3a and RG7112 are being used to interrogate the impact of modulating MDM2 function in combination with front-line therapy. Our objective was to investigate whether MDM2 antagonists, alone or in combination with temozolomide (TMZ), can augment cell death in orthotopic GBM xenograft models. In vitro data indicate that TMZ and nutlin3a are synergistic in decreasing cell viability in wild type (wt) p53 U87-MG, primary human wt p53 GBM10 and mutant (mt) p53 GBM43 cells. Pharmacodynamic studies demonstrated that the mechanism of action for promoting cell death following exposure to TMZ/nutlin3a was multifactorial. Comet assays indicated that repair of TMZ-mediated DNA damage was significantly delayed in wt and mt p53 GBM cells treated with TMZ/nutlin3a compared to TMZ alone and the base excision repair protein Ape1 was downregulated in cells treated with TMZ/nutlin3a. Pharmacokinetic studies guided development of rational dosing regimens in which 2-3 five-day cycles of TMZ followed by nutlin3a 4 hours later were investigated. In ectopic U87-MG xenografts, nutlin3a sensitized xenografts to TMZ-mediated cell death. Orthotopic studies employing U87-MG, GBM10, and GBM43 tumors are being utilized to determine if nutlin3a levels detectable in the brain via HPLC-MS/MS(API 4000) are sufficient to modulate MDM2 function in the context of TMZ and increase survival. In the TMZ-resistant GBM10 (wtp53, MGMTpos, and PTENnull) orthotopic model, there was a modest increase in median survival from 63 days with TMZ to 73 days with TMZ/nutlin3a. Higher and more sustained brain levels of MDM2 antagonists will likely be necessary to improve survival. The MDM2 antagonist RG7112 has an improved PK profile and structural analysis of RG7112 and nutlin3a via QikProp 3.0 (www.schrodinger.com) indicates that RG7112 also has an improved predicted brain/blood partition coefficient (plog BB) compared to nutlin3a (RG7112 = -0.17; nutlin3a = -0.415). Studies are in progress to assess the brain penetration of RG7112 and its effect on GBM growth in vivo. Taken together, our data suggest that modulation of MDM2 function in the context of cytotoxic therapy has the potential to alter mechanisms involved in DNA repair that can promote cell death and improve survival. Citation Format: Haiyan Wang, Shanbao Cai, Barbara J. Bailey, Lawrence M. Gelbert, M. Reza Saadatzadeh, Aaron A. Cohen-Gadol, Jann N. Sarkaria, Paul Territo, Taxiarchis M. Georgiadis, T. Zachary Gunter, Samy Meroueh, Eric C. Long, David R. Jones, Lindsey D. Mayo, Shannon Harlan, Karen E. Pollok. Sensitization of temozolomide-mediated glioblastoma cell death by targeting MDM2: Assessment of PD biomarkers, brain penetration, and efficacy in humanized orthotopic xenograft models. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 2741. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-2741