FEATURED NEWS
Pediatric cancer researcher receives $400,000 grant for nanotech-based liquid biopsy technologies
Funding from Hyundai Hope on Wheels brings total awarded to UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital close to $2.8 million
By Evelyn Tokuyama
This article was originally published by UCLA Health
Steven J. Jonas, MD, PhD, a physician-scientist at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital, has been awarded a $400,000 Hyundai Scholar Hope grant from Hyundai Hope on Wheels, a nonprofit organization dedicated to curing childhood cancer. This is Dr. Jonas’ fourth grant from the organization, which has now awarded nearly $2.8 million to support pediatric cancer research at UCLA since 2010.
Dr. Jonas accepted the award during an Aug. 5 ceremony at UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital attended by leadership from UCLA Health and Hyundai Motor America, along with physicians, researchers, pediatric patients and their families. As part of the event’s signature “handprint ceremony,” young cancer patients painted their hands and left colorful imprints on Dr. Jonas’ white coat and a 2025 Hyundai vehicle, symbolizing hope and progress in the fight against childhood cancer.
Dr. Jonas is a faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, California NanoSystems Institute, Broad Stem Cell Research Center at UCLA, and UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. He leads a multidisciplinary research team focused on developing broadly applicable and accessible technologies that support the childhood cancer community.
Dr. Jonas’ newest project seeks to design diagnostic tests that offer a “liquid biopsy” of the underlying cancer by applying nanotechnologies for selectively isolating and analyzing circulating tumor-derived extracellular vesicles that are shed from tumors and enter the bloodstream. These tiny vesicles, described as being nature’s version of a lipid nanoparticle shipping container, carry genetic cargoes that can be used to profile a cancer and its behavior, including how it responds to treatment.
“We’re trying to fill an unmet need for new diagnostic tools that enable more precise and timely monitoring of a child’s disease status,” said Dr. Jonas. “These capabilities would enable pediatric oncologists to alter their management of a child’s cancer treatment more quickly and decisively.”
Dr. Jonas, who has a unique background that combines nanoscience, materials science and bioengineering, said support from Hyundai Hope on Wheels has been critical to his lab’s progress.
“This support from Hyundai Hope on Wheels allows us to take risks and go after hard problems in childhood cancer, especially in areas like solid tumors, where traditional treatments often fall short,” said Dr. Jonas, who completed his MD-PhD, pediatric residency and pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship training at UCLA.
Precision medicine-based solutions
Pediatric sarcomas are bone and soft tissue tumors that primarily affect adolescents and young adults. These cancers are notoriously difficult to treat, particularly when there is evidence of the disease spreading or progressing, which can drop a patient’s overall survival in half. Dr. Jonas’ lab is working to design diagnostic solutions that improve the ability to profile the cancer and track its response to treatment noninvasively.
“Unlocking new capabilities for monitoring pediatric cancers in this way would offer a powerful precision medicine-based solution for pediatric oncologists that may better guide critical clinical decision-making and potential opportunities for minimizing toxicities associated with existing treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation,” he said.
Patient journeys
That promise of gentler, more precise care resonates deeply with patients and survivors who have experienced the harsh realities of cancer treatment.
Angela Unayan, a pediatric cancer survivor and three-time Hyundai Hope on Wheels event speaker, shared her personal journey through treatment and her aspirations for the future.
Accordingly, insulin that remains stable for longer without refrigeration could reduce the drug’s cost by making logistics less expensive. And an extended shelf life would cut back on both wasted medicine and potentially dangerous situations where expired insulin delivers an inadequate dose. More than that, insulin could become accessible to some remote locales that are currently out of reach for refrigerated transport.
A series of studies led by Maynard over the last three years has demonstrated pTrMA’s potential. A recent Innovation Fund–supported study published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces found that the polymer preserved insulin at temperatures of nearly 200 degrees Fahrenheit — close to water’s boiling point — and through almost a year of refrigerated storage, with 87% of the medication remaining intact, compared with less than 8% of insulin alone. Laboratory experiments into pTrMA’s safety showed that it did not trigger an immune response in mice.
A 2021 study, also backed by the Innovation Fund, showed that insulin plus pTrMA has a low enough viscosity to be safely injected, and 2020 research demonstrated that a version of pTrMA designed to degrade inside the body retained the ability to stabilize insulin.
An early finding, from 2014, that pTrMA actually works better than trehalose as a preserving agent hasn’t been the only pleasant surprise along the way. Maynard’s team typically designs polymers to be chemically linked to drug molecules, but in the case of pTrMA, they found that it is equally effective intermingled alongside insulin molecules without chemical links.
Maynard suspects that the polymer has potential for broader use.
“Trehalose polymers stabilize a wide range of proteins and enzymes,” she said. “Vaccines are a possibility, and we think that the polymers could be a platform technology applied to an array of different biologically based drugs.”
Flexible resources from the Innovation Fund have allowed Maynard the freedom to pursue the most relevant questions in her studies. That benefit ended up working in concert with another: introductions to pharmaceutical industry experts by UCLA’s Technology Development Group.
One such expert recommended that Maynard investigate the action of the pTrMA in the body. In her recent ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces publication on pTrMA, Maynard and her team found no significant difference in blood plasma concentrations over time between insulin alone and the drug formulated with pTrMA.
“It’s not always easy to find funding for some of the systematic studies we’ve been conducting,” Maynard said. “The UCLA Innovation Fund accelerated the research and gave us the ability to pivot.”
If Maynard’s polymer finds continued success as a safe stabilizer, drugs from the lifesaving to the everyday could become cheaper and available in more places. And she’ll have a couple of others to thank: Mother Nature and the nigh-indestructible water bear.