Benedict Shek Hang Law
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, NY·Biomedical Engineering
Most bladder cancers are caught early, but they come back in 50–80% of patients after standard treatment. That treatment usually means surgery followed by pumping medicine straight into the bladder through a catheter.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Pharmacology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
bladder cancer
urothelial cancer
drug delivery
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- Determine the best physicochemical properties of Bds, an improved kidney-cleared carrier peptide, including chemical groups, length and surface charge, along with infusion rate and volume, for precise drug delivery to the urinary system.
- Evaluate how well a DM1-Bds conjugate, the anticancer drug mertansine joined to the peptide, treats non-muscle invasive and muscle invasive bladder cancer, and whether it reaches tumors throughout the urinary tract.
- Test DM1-Bds combined with pembrolizumab, an immune checkpoint inhibitor, against bladder cancer, using immune profiling to measure anti-tumor activity.
More about the research
The medicine is either BCG (bacillus Calmette-Guérin, a weakened bacterium that stirs up an immune response) or chemotherapy. This approach has problems. The drug cannot reach tumors higher up in the urinary tract. Patients often need to urinate soon after the drug is given, which cuts treatment short. Catheters are invasive and can cause infections. BCG is also in short supply. This project asks whether a drug given into a vein could be steered to flow through the whole urinary system instead.
Why it matters
Bladder cancer often returns after standard treatment, and catheter-based therapy is invasive and cannot reach the upper urinary tract. An intravenous drug that flows through the entire urinary system could help patients with early-stage or muscle-invasive bladder cancer. It might be especially useful for patients who cannot have their bladder removed. It could also avoid catheterization, improve quality of life and lower hospital costs. The same carrier might later deliver antibiotics for bladder infections.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Gangning Liang
University of Southern California, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether DNA methylation marker panels measured in urine sediments can detect residual tumor cells after transurethral resection of bladder tumor in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer patients.
Sarah Psutka
University of Washington, WA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether weekly in-clinic true acupuncture before intravesical therapy reduces urinary symptoms more than sham acupuncture or a waitlist control, using the EORTC QLQ-NMIBC24 questionnaire at weeks 3, 6 and 12.
Robert Svatek
University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test in a phase II double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial whether one year of eRapa, an encapsulated oral form of the mTOR inhibitor rapamycin, reduces relapse in patients newly diagnosed with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, using standard surveillance to estimate recurrence-free survival.
The school
Weill Medical College of Cornell University: 35 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 59 research doctorates a year.
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