Dirk Spitzer

Background

About Dirk Spitzer

Having started my career as a chemistry student in Braunschweig, Germany, I soon realized that my true passion was working with DNA as a tool to create and evaluate new concepts for the treatment of human diseases. The interest to design protein therapeutics (biologics) continued during my PhD thesis, where I developed murine retroviruses resistant to complement inactivation for in vivo gene therapy (HZI, Germany). After finishing a postdoc (Washington University, Saint Louis, USA), where I continued to develop (complement) therapeutics in a preclinical mouse model of complement regulatory protein deficiency (Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria – PNH), I started pursuing developing new drug concepts for cancer therapy, which led to the invention of the TRAIL-based TR3 drug platform technology. I started focusing on pancreatic cancer and expanded these efforts later to ovarian cancer. In addition to my laboratory activities, I have had the opportunity to assume educational responsibilities regarding training a number of fellows and residents from both the Departments of General Surgery and Gynecologic Oncology. After being promoted to the Instructor position, I served as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery. In addition to exploring the extrinsic death pathway (biomarker-targeted TRAIL-based TR3 biologics, anti-mesothelin and anti-MUC16), my research focuses on the targeted delivery of small molecule drugs (peptidomimetics and other small molecule drug cargoes) conjugated to sigma-2 ligands as vehicles. The ultimate goal is to explore both drugs alone and in combination and perform clinical evaluation in patients diagnosed with pancreatic and ovarian cancers. I have received independent funding as principal investigator (PI) from the ICTS, Bear Cub (CDD), DoD, NIH [R01] and the Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund, as well as a key investigator on more than seven local and federal grants (SCC, CFF, NIH [R01, R21, SPORE in pancreatic cancer]). My recent recruitment to the Medical University of South Carolina represents a major steppingstone for implementing my next career move – developing the various drug platform technologies closer to clinical application. As such, my future professional goals are centered around developing both existing and new drug platforms – mesothelin- and MUC16-targeted TR3 biologics as well as sigma2-ligand based drug conjugates (S2/IAPinh and S2/Erastin [ACXT-3102]) toward the clinical arena, alone and in combination with each other and clinically approved pathway enhancers.