Pediatrics Team looking to find new ways to treat children with ALL
(L-R: Dr. Ketan Kulkarni, Dr. Andrew Stadnyk, MSc Student Zara Forbrigger)
Interested in improving the outcomes when treating acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common cancer in children, Drs Andrew Stadnyk (Pediatrics), Ketan Kulkarni (Pediatrics) and MSc student Zara Forbrigger (CRTP trainee in Pathology), were awarded a BHCRI/DMRF seed grant in 2020. Many drugs are used at the same time to treat leukemia but one drug, pegaspargase, has a simple way of destroying cancer cells. Pegaspargase reduces levels of an amino acid that cancer cells but not healthy cells, rely on. However, because dosing is not optimal, pegaspargase causes side effects and cancer cells can become resistant to pegaspargase, leading to a relapse. In this study the team wanted to find out if the amount of the critical amino acid (L-asparagine) in food could impact levels in the blood and therefore the effectiveness of pegaspargase. They also wanted to see whether bacteria in the intestines would change when different levels of the amino acid were available in the diet. In an animal model, they observed that the diets, whether high or low in L-asparagine, did not make any difference in the blood levels. The addition of pegaspargase however, was able to reduce blood levels despite the diets. This means that reducing the L-asparagine in a patient’s diet prior to treatment is probably not going to make a difference in how well pegaspargase works in the patient’s blood.
“Our collaboration and research into improving the efficacy of pegaspargase treatments of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia is new, and this grant helped launch our investigations”, says Dr. Stadnyk. Zara Forbrigger a Masters student in the Department of Pathology and CRTP trainee, conducted the experiments, so the project also served as a learning platform. The results have been used to take the next steps, and the group has been awarded a grant from the IWK Health Centre to conduct further experiments. “This funding has provided us with a secure foothold on a path to take action to prevent relapses in ALL.”
