Dr. Keith Latham grew up around chemistry, and it wasn’t a surprise that he became a pharmaceutical chemist. Through his Bristol, Virginia company Innovative Technologies, he now focuses his efforts on creating new treatments for diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis. Latham says one of his latest projects will help in the early detection of breast cancer, and he’s ready to take the next step: human trials.
Latham isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. He is, however, trying to improve the quality of treatment of diseases. His latest effort; a drug that can help detect ductal carcinoma – a type of breast cancer – much earlier.
This would be an adjunct to mammography,” Latham says. “We can amplify the signal. We can detect as few as 10 ductal carcinoma cells, just very few. And that's extremely important.”
Latham says the use of this drug is more sensitive than a regular mammogram. He explains the research he’s conducted on rats.
“When you give the rat our new diagnostic…that picks up all of the tumor cells in there that are dividing. Inappropriately dividing. That's what we call cancer,” he says. “The surgeon, for example, could come in and look there, and that tumor, that specific spot would turn aquamarine, by the drug diagnostic itself. So if you look in there surgically, you can just take out the blue/green portion.”
Latham’s facility in Bristol, Virginia has the ability to make medication in pill form, and has the space to expand. That means hiring people from right here in the Tri-Cities region.
“We consider this such a beautiful region with lots of people that are interested, and good work ethic, we can hire people here, and we have everything we need here to do a good thing,” he says.
If you’d like to be a part of the study, whether as a patient or if you’re a doctor interested in being a principal researcher, call 276-466-0221or click on the link at the side of the page to go to the website.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement