Theranostic Imaging of Metastatic Prostate Cancer

Zhihang Chen¹, Marie-France Penet¹, Sridhar Nimmagadda¹, Cong Li¹, Sangeeta Ray¹, Paul T. Winnard Jr.¹, Dmitri Artemov¹, Kristine Glunde¹, Martin G. Pomper¹, Zaver M. Bhujwalla¹

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second leading cause of death from cancer in men in the U.S. The vast majority of men dying of PCa succumb to metastatic androgen-refractory disease. There is therefore a compelling need to find effective treatments for metastatic PCa. In theranostics, noninvasive imaging-based detection of a target is combined with the delivery of a therapeutic payload to the target. Here we are combining prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) based detection of metastatic PCa with a theranostic PSMA-targeted prototype nanoplex carrying multimodality imaging reporters together with small interfering RNA (siRNA) and a prodrug enzyme.