Category: cancer

More evidence that the front lines of research on life-threatening diseases are right here on the UGA campus and in the Franklin College. Insightful new work from a research group lead by faculty member Natarajan Kannan of the Institute for Bioinformatics and the department of biochemistry and molecular biology:

Enter protein kinases. Like specialized traffic signals, this huge class of proteins is critical for many aspects of cell communication, telling them when to begin work and when to stop.

Now, University of Georgia researchers have discovered that a little-studied part of the protein kinases that once appeared non-functional may actually control the most critical functions of the entire molecule. Their research promises to help improve drugs used to fight a variety of life-threatening diseases, from diabetes to cancer.

"The overall goal of this project was to better understand how these proteins function and what mechanisms control their function," said Natarajan Kannan, a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholar and assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "Our research shows that these little-studied dark regions of the protein are directly affecting the molecule's function."

More terrific news from Franklin College scientists in the CCRC:

Ovarian and pancreatic cancers are among the most deadly, not because they are impossible to cure, but because they are difficult to find. There are no screening tests that can reliably detect their presence in early stages, and most diagnoses are made after the disease has already spread to lymph nodes and vital organs.

But University of Georgia cancer researchers Karen Abbott and Michael Pierce are exploring new methods of detecting these silent killers using the most advanced technologies available. They recently received two, five-year grants from the National Institutes of Health totaling more than $4.1 million to support their projects. Their work promises to help find the cancers early, when doctors have the best chance to help their patients fight the disease.

"Almost every cancer can be successfully treated if it is diagnosed early enough," said Pierce, Distinguished Research Professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and director of the UGA Cancer Center. "If we and others can identify something that helps us find the cancer very early, we will save lives."

A research team led by Ying Xu, Regents-Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and professor of bioinformatics and computational biology in the Franklin College, has published some compeeling new findings on the growth of cancer cells:

Low oxygen levels in cells may be a primary cause of uncontrollable tumor growth in some cancers, according to a new University of Georgia study. The authors' findings run counter to widely accepted beliefs that genetic mutations are responsible for cancer growth.

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The research team analyzed samples of messenger RNA data-also called transcriptomic data-from seven different cancer types in a publicly available database. They found that long-term lack of oxygen in cells may be a key driver of cancer growth. The study was published in the early online edition of the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology.

Work by researchers from Franklin College and the Mayo Clinic in Arizona is being widely reported:

Researchers from the University of Georgia and the Mayo Clinic in Arizona have developed a vaccine that dramatically reduces tumors in a mouse model that mimics 90 percent of human breast and pancreatic cancer cases—including those resistant to common treatments.