Seattle researchers developed something
called “tumor paint”

In 2004, a 17-year-old girl with brain cancer underwent a 17-hour surgery at Seattle Children's Hospital. Despite the lengthy procedure by a top surgeon, a large piece of the cancer was left behind in her brain because the doctor believed it was healthy brain matter and didn't want to hurt the girl.
And the worst part was that this sort of thing happens all the time.
That doctor was a member of Jim Olson's research team at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and that team started working in 2004 to develop a way to make cancer cells light up so doctors can distinguish between bad cells and good cells, and eliminate the problem of leaving cancer behind.
This week, an imaging agent called Tumor Paint, developed by that team from Fred Hutchinson as well as researchers from Seattle Children's Hospital and the University of Washington and licensed by Blaze Bioscience, got the go-ahead from the Food and Drug Administration to begin a Phase 1 clinical study to do just that.
Tumor Paint uses synthetic scorpion venom, which binds itself to proteins that show up on cancer cells but not normal cells, to essentially make cancer glow.
During the course of the research, lab mice were injected with the Tumor Paint in their tails, and just an hour later, the human tumors attached to their backs began to glow while the rest of their bodies did not. "We started celebrating," said Olson.
Tumor Paint being developed for market doesn't just make things easier for the surgeon; with a more targeted and precise procedure, the patient may not have to undergo as much chemotherapy, could have an easier recovery and a higher survival rate.
"My personal vision is that some day a neurosurgeon could do sort of a keyhole surgery similar to what orthopedic surgeons do in knees and remove a brain tumor surgically while minimally disrupting the brain," Olson said.

And while this study will focus on brain cancer, Tumor Paint holds promise for other types of cancers as well, from breast to colon to sarcoma. Those trials could begin as early as 2015, Olson said.
This study will open in Los Angeles and will involve about 21 patients.
Tumor Paint has come a long way. In its early stages, Olson said his team was turned down for many grants for being "overly ambitious and too speculative." The fundraising effort was led instead by families of pediatric brain cancer patients and the Seattle medical community, which raised more than $8 million to fund the work.
Blaze Bioscience handles the actual development of Tumor Paint, led by CEO Heather Franklin, who came to Blaze via ZymoGenetics and worked for the first two years on this project without pay.
"I started with a crew of people, and for the first year, we worked basically for stock in a company that hadn't raised a single dollar," she said.
But given the need she saw for the product, she wasn't worried. "When I first talked with Jim, I said the same thing my investors say, which is, 'What do you mean you can't see the tumor during the surgery?'" Franklin said. "It was so clear this is something that needs to happen."
She believes the power of Tumor Paint could be especially important in reducing the number of patients who have to undergo re-operation rates after a doctor fails to remove all of the cancer, and it's also key to reducing health care costs by boosting the amount of cancers cured early and reducing the amount of money spent on late-stage care.