New Venture Winner Fighting Cancer at Nano Level
(photo courtesy of BioCrossroads)
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA young company that uses nanotechnology to boost the punch of cancer-killing radiation treatments is the winner of this year’s New Venture Competition at the Indiana Life Sciences Summit. West Lafayette-based LoDos Theranostics, launched two years ago by a Purdue University chemical engineering professor and an MBA graduate from MIT, couples its Radio-Luminescent ultra-violet nanoparticles with X-rays or gamma-rays traditionally used against cancer tumors. The company says the combination can "significantly enhance" the power of the treatment, while reducing typical side effects like nausea, dizziness and radiation burns.
During an interview at the Monday event in Indianapolis with Inside INdiana Business, Gary Noonan with LoDos Theranostics said the process could be even more versatile in the future. "When you work on technologies, you don’t always really know what you don’t know. In other words, there will be things that I’ve sort of dreamt about that it might end up doing that might change the industry and approach that we can’t even perceive today."
LoDos Theranostics was one of five finalists competing for a share of $50,000 in cash prizes. Jeffersonville-based Inscope Medical Solutions, a medical device manufacturer that took the win at in the Venture Club of Indiana’s Innovation Showcase Pitch Competition earlier this year, finished second in the ILSS contest. Indiana Lysis Technologies, a nanoparticle drug delivery developer, was third.
Last year, the Purdue Research Park released a feature on LoDos Theranostics: