Tim Witney<\/a>, professor of molecular imaging at the King\u2019s College London and chief scientific officer of Nuclide. Because resistance often begins in small clusters of cells long before clinical signs appear, it can be difficult to catch, and patients often continue to receive ineffective treatments.<\/p>\nWitney\u2019s group was working on radiotheranostics, which combines detection with treatment, when Muhammet Tanc\u2014now Nuclide\u2019s cofounder and CEO\u2014applied for a postdoctoral position. Tanc worked in Witney\u2019s lab to develop radiotracer molecules that target proteins linked to resistance pathways to light up resistant cells, often before the cells are visible through other imaging techniques. And when resistance does appear, the imaging isotope can be swapped for a therapeutic one.<\/p>\n
Tanc and Witney decided to commercialize their technology and founded Nuclide along with biologist Sophia Santos and radiochemist Richard Edwards.<\/p>\n
The company is focused on targeting ALDH1A1, an enzyme that detoxifies aldehydes but is hijacked by treatment-resistant cancers\u2014in advanced stages, up to 60% of tumor cells upregulate the enzyme. By identifying these cells, then targeting them with radiotherapy, the treatment is specific, Witney says. \u201cWe can actually deliver a bomb to the tumor itself and leave all those healthy tissues intact.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers have already demonstrated preclinical data success against lung and ovarian cancers with their approach, although Witney says Nuclide plans to initially concentrate on lung cancer treatment because of the poor prognosis for most patients.<\/p>\n
The initial investment provides a 2-year runway; the team plans to finalize toxicology studies on its lead candidate in early 2026 and move to patient trials later that year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re focused on making a difference in cancer patients\u2019 lives,\u201d Witney says.<\/p>\n
\n Chemical & Engineering News<\/p>\n
ISSN 0009-2347<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9
\n 2025 American Chemical Society<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u00a0 Nuclide Therapeutics, a King\u2019s College London spinout developing radioactive drugs to target therapy-resistant cancers, has closed a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[258,103,61,60,28388,12360,28387,5021,15321],"class_list":{"0":"post-36700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-nuclide","13":"tag-radiotherapy","14":"tag-resistant","15":"tag-start-up","16":"tag-start-ups"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}