ESPERANCE: DELIVERING HOPE TO CANCER PATIENTS
Research in veterinary medicine leads to surprising human treatment option

When Fred Enright and William Hansel began working on a less invasive way to sterilize dogs, the farthest thing from their minds was finding a better way to fight cancer.

They hoped to develop an injection that would permanently shut down an animal’s reproductive capacity—sterilization without surgery or hormone therapy—a longstanding goal in veterinary medicine.

What they found instead could be the cancer treatment many human patients have been waiting for.

Louisiana Emerging Technology Center, the wet-lab business incubator at LSU.

Supported by an influx of venture capital, Enright and Hansel are now vigorously redirecting their research toward a new class of tumor-fighting compounds under the banner Esperance, the French word for “hope.”

Enright, head of veterinary science at the LSU AgCenter, and Hansel, an animal physiologist working jointly with the AgCenter and Pennington Biomedical Research Center, began collaborating on their dog sterilization project in the early 1990s. Their work focused on membrane disruptive peptides, or MDPs, bits of protein that might be used to disrupt reproductive function.

They knew the efficacy of MDPs could be improved if targeted to specific cells. They chose gonadotropes (cells in the pituitary that drive testicular and ovarian function), targeting these with a combination of MDP and a ligand called GNRH, a binding molecule these cells have receptors for.

Though the experiment was successful, the effects proved only temporary.“Within a month and a half, the cells grew back and reproductive capability returned,” Enright said.

Undaunted, he and Hansel noted how rapidly the pituitary cells regenerated. Knowing that reproductive cancer cells have the same receptors as the gonadotropes, the researchers soon realized the potential this might hold as a future cancer treatment.

With the help of Pennington biochemist Carola Leuschner, the team began working to develop new, more efficient peptides, hoping they might target tumors on reproductive organs. They were right.

“We’ve seen really encouraging results,” said Enright. “The peptides are easily targeted with virtually no toxicity, unlike traditional chemotherapy, which kills healthy tissue right along with cancer tissue. “[With the Esperance peptides], the side effects are minimal to nonexistent,” he said. “That’s the real advantage of this treatment.”

HEALING MOLECULE: Hecate, the membrane disrupting part of the ligand-MDP.

“It’s a great story for LSU,” said Joe Lovett, managing general partner of Louisiana Fund I, one of three venture capital firms bringing $9 million to form Esperance Pharmaceuticals. “Here’s a collaboration between the AgCenter and Pennington Biomedical that becomes an exciting venture at the Louisiana Emerging Technology Center, LSU’s wet-lab business incubator.”

Esperance Pharmaceuticals is now in the first stages of drug development, focused on optimizing several lead molecules. The next step is clinical testing, a crucial waypoint on the long road toward FDA approval. Once a drug is available to the public, it may offer cancer patients an option for treatment as effective but less traumatic than radiation or chemotherapy.

With the new company’s optimistic preliminary results—and a name like “hope” —the future of cancer treatment is definitely looking up.

ON THE WEB:
More information about Esperance
Louisiana Emerging Technology Center
LSU AgCenter
Pennington Biomedical Research Center

from Summer 2007 Issue