The current major focus of the Dynlacht Lab is to characterize novel chemotherapeutic agents that are not toxic at 37° C when given systemically, but which can become activated to become cytotoxic by local hyperthermia treatment, thereby potentially limiting lethal effects of the compounds solely to tumor cells within the heated tissue volume in patients. Hyperthermia has been shown to be effective in treating several types of tumors but is often used most effectively when administered as an adjuvant to radiation therapy or chemotherapy, since heat sensitizes cells to radiation and some types of drugs; sensitization is believed to be mediated by an inhibition of repair of radiation- or drug-induced DNA damage.
