Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation

2003-2004 Strategic Development

Title

Structure/functional analysis of phage-derived and molecularly designed loop peptides with high affinity for human tumor-specific NeuAc2-6aGal-Nacal-O-Ser epitope

Funding Received

SHRF

30,000

About Program

The Strategic Development Grant Program was intended to improve the success rate of Saskatchewan-based research proposals in national health research funding competitions, ultimately increasing the amount of national health research funding flowing to Saskatchewan and boosting health research capacity. It provided financial support to Saskatchewan university faculty members for preparing full proposals of a collaborative, multi-disciplinary nature that would be submitted to a strategic health research funding initiative offered at the national level. --- Developmental work focused on obtaining support from a national strategic initiative, defined as a special call for proposals that would develop specific areas of health research or address gaps in health research capacity in Canada. For this program, strategic initiatives did not include regular operating grants or other regular programs. Typically, the strategic calls would come from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research or one of its institutes but may come from other national granting or voluntary agencies.

Jim Xiang

Saskatoon Cancer Centre

Saskatchewan Cancer Agency

Antibody (Ab)-directed radioimmunoscintigraphy can be used for clinical detection of cancers yet problems remain preventing it from having wide-spread clinical application. Drawing on previous work in this area, Dr. Xiang and his team aim to (1) identify loop peptides with specific binding for the TAG72 epitope, (2), using a combination of crystallography, spectroscopy and computational modeling, further develop a new generation of loop peptides with higher affinity for TAG72, and (3) target health research funding at the national level. The long-term goal of this research is to develop pharmaceuticals for tumor imaging and tumour-targeted chemotherapy.

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Recipients

Jim Xiang