Researcher working on ‘magic bullet’ to fight lymphoma
Oct. 27, 2003

By KATHRYN MCKENZIE NICHOLS
Knight Ridder Newspapers

(KRT PHOTOGRAPH BY VERN FISHER/MONTEREY COUNTY HERALD) Dr. Mark Kaminski, prominent researcher in lymphoma, grew up in Monterey, California, and is home for a visit. He is leading the way to what appears to be a "magic bullet" against at least one type of lymphoma.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center Bexxar

MONTEREY, Calif. — Ever since Mark Kaminski was in high school and began thinking about what he wanted to do with his life, he was intrigued by medicine — and in particular, finding a cure for cancer.

The cure for cancer is the Holy Grail of medical research circles, something thought for years to be an impossible quest.

But now, the 51-year-old Monterey native is leading the way to what appears to be a “magic bullet” against at least one type of lymphoma.

Like the search for the grail, the road has been lengthy, arduous and full of surprises. But Kaminski has persevered.

He achieved his goal at the end of June, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the treatment that he’s been developing over the past 15 years.

“This is what people go into medicine dreaming of,” said Kaminski, who was recently in Monterey to visit his parents.

“I don’t know if I was totally naive, or just stubborn,” said Kaminski about his quest for a cure. “It’s not that common for a treatment to go all this way (to approval).”

Kaminski, co-director of the leukemia/lymphoma/bone marrow transplant program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, is a doctor specializing in the treatment of lymphoma. His team of researchers have developed a treatment for b-cell lymphoma that is kinder and gentler to the body than either chemotherapy or radiation, employing just two injections and causing very few side effects.

The treatment delivers a one-two punch to cancerous cells — first blasting them with radiation, then using the body’s own immune system to deliver a final death blow. It’s what is termed a “targeted therapy.”

Its commercial name is Bexxar and it is now being manufactured at a plant in Canada. Two drug companies, Corixa Corp. and GlaxoSmithKlein, are marketing the unique treatment in the United States.

Bexxar works as well as it does because it’s designed to precisely pinpoint the cancerous cells and leave healthy tissue alone. In conventional treatments, all the cells get bombarded with toxic substances, which causes the multiple troubles associated with chemotherapy and radiation.

Bexxar employs an antibody to which a radioactive iodine molecule is attached. The radioactive antibody locks onto cancerous cells, “like little smart bombs,” said Kaminski. The antibody then delivers its radiation directly into the bad cells.

The patient receives an initial dose intravenously and then is tested to see how quickly his or her body processes the radiation. A therapeutic dose is then custom-made and the patient gets that one week later.

And that’s it. The patient goes home, feeling good. No nausea, no weakness, and no hair loss or other gruesome side effects.

Kaminski said it has taken many years to refine the treatment — in fact, he filed the patent for it a decade ago, in 1993. Since then, it has been tested on some 1,000 patients in studies throughout the United States.

“It’s probably one of the most widely studied (new drugs), and with one of the longest followups,” said Kaminski.

And, Kaminski said, it has helped many lymphoma patients who did not respond to any other treatments — the seemingly hopeless cases, many of them with what is called the “low-grade” or slow-growing form of the disease.

Kaminski recalls one lymphoma patient who had been through seven different chemo treatments to no avail, and had never been in remission for more than six months.
She was one of his study subjects, and is now cancer-free.

“For her, it was like a miracle,” said Kaminski.

Of the test subjects who weren’t helped by prior treatments, between 50 and 60 percent responded to Bexxar, and between 20 and 40 percent experienced complete remission.
For people who had Bexxar as their first lymphoma treatment, the results were even more dramatic — up to 95 percent responded, and 75 percent had complete remission, Kaminski said.

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a form of cancer that affects the blood and lymphatic tissues, which are found throughout the body. According to the National Cancer Institute, nearly 300,000 Americans have NHL, and it is the sixth leading cause of cancer death in the United States, killing 25,000 each year.

What is worrisome as well, Kaminski notes, is that the incidence of lymphoma is rising in the United States, and it can strike people of any age or gender.

All the more reason to get Bexxar on the market, although as Kaminski will readily admit, it’s been enough to try the patience of a saint.

“It took a lot of data to convince the medical world that this would work,” he said.
Although Kaminski had dreamed of a cancer cure as a youth, he became interested in lymphoma while a student at Stanford University, influenced by leaders in the field.

When he first arrived at the University of Michigan in 1985, immunotherapy looked like “a dead end” to researchers, in Kaminski’s words. But he and his colleagues began to look into such a treatment, and found that cancerous lymphoma cells were exquisitely sensitive to radiation.

He and a nuclear medicine specialist, Dr. Richard Wahl, put their heads together and developed the idea that would ultimately lead to Bexxar.

Kaminski credits his wife and daughter for their support throughout the long, long process. He also knows he couldn’t have done it without his study subjects.

“Without the patients in the clinical trials, no progress would have been made,” he said. “They’re the real heroes in this story. They were willing to put their lives on the line.”