• Collaboration with the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (ROH) secures a place on the SPARK THE MIDLANDS programme

• Will support development of minimally invasive anti-cancer and bone regenerative injectable paste
• If proved effective through clinical trials, the paste could be used to treat patients with primary and metastatic bone cancer.

A Royal Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (ROH) and Aston University collaboration has secured support to develop a minimally invasive anti-cancer and bone regenerative injectable paste, using the cancer-killing properties of gallium.

The team has secured a place on the SPARK THE MIDLANDS programme which aims to provide academic support to advance healthcare research discoveries in the region.

The team from the ROH includes Dr Lucas Souza, Professor Adrian Gardner, and Mr Jonathan Stevenson alongside Professor Richard Martin and Dr Eirini Theodosiou from Aston University. Together, they will use the SPARK programme to secure a route for the cancer-killing paste to be taken from the lab, into clinics and hospitals. If proved effective through clinical trials, the paste - a gallium-doped bioglass - could be used to treat patients with primary and metastatic bone cancer.

Dr Lucas Souza, Research Laboratory Manager at The Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, said: “Where the global success rate for new ideas making it to clinical trials is less than 5%, SPARK has recorded a project success rate of 62%. Thanks to this programme, the ROH will have the support to develop a regional pipeline for the translation of ideas for orthopaedic and bone cancer applications to NHS-approved medical use.”

Professor Martin added: “Bioactive glasses, a filling material which can bond to tissue and improve the strength of bones and teeth, has been combined with gallium to create a potential treatment for bone cancer. Gallium is highly toxic, and we have found that the ‘greedy’ cancer cells soak it up and self-kill, which prevents healthy cells from being affected.

“Tests in our labs have found that bioactive glasses doped with the metal have a 99 percent success rate of eliminating cancerous cells and can even regenerate diseased bones.”

SPARK THE MIDLANDS is a collaboration between Aston University, the West Midlands Health Tech Innovation Accelerator (WMHTIA) and Forging Ahead. The programme originated out of Stanford University in California and has proved hugely impactful in improving the success of innovations making their way to clinical trials and then clinical practice.

The programme provides access to specialised knowledge and technical expertise regarding diagnostic, therapeutic and medical device development and sources of funding to support translational efforts. It also helps to provide mentorship and forge networks between researchers, those with technical and specialist knowledge and potential sources of funding.