Director’s Column:

Gunda Georg, Ph.D.

As director of the Drug Discovery Program at the HBC and PI of the $9.9-million Center for Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) grant, I am pleased to announce that COBRE First Award grants for 2001 have been awarded to five junior faculty researchers at the KU Medical Center and Kansas State University. Each researcher will receive $50,000 to help them establish their innovative cancer research projects. It is important to support more cancer researchers and to jump-start their research programs. These scientists will be the future leaders in cancer research in the state of Kansas and the nation.

Scientists eligible for the First Award grant are generally non-tenured faculty members in the first three years of a tenure-track position at KU, Kansas State University, and KU Medical Center. Their research must be eligible for NIH funding, and it must be related to cancer. The awards, which can total up to $100,000 over a two-year period, are subject to annual renewal. The COBRE First Award program can also be a valuable recruitment tool when hiring new faculty. Now that this grant is in place, it offers an incentive to incoming tenure-track faculty and may help attract more promising young researchers to the state of Kansas.

Here is a brief description of the winning projects:

Fighting ovarian tumors
Diane Persons, associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the KU Medical Center, is investigating how ovarian cancer cells respond to common anti-cancer drugs and why many of these cancers become resistant to therapy. By understanding the molecular mechanisms by which tumor cells become resistant to anti-cancer drugs, therapeutic strategies can be developed to increase the effectiveness of these drugs and prolong survival of women with ovarian cancer.

Kidney disease research
Gregory Vanden Heuvel, assistant professor of anatomy and cell biology at the KU Medical Center, is studying a protein called Cux-1 that, during normal human development, plays a key role in the division of cells. When development is completed, Cux-1 disappears. However, Vanden Heuvel has found that when Cux-1 is prevented from disappearing in mice, it can cause cell division to continue out of control, leading to overgrowth and, in some cases, cancer. Vanden Heuvel’s research focuses on the development of kidney disease as the result of this over-expression of Cux-1. He hopes to determine how Cux-1 stimulates cell division in mature cells. Ultimately, his research may prove that Cux-1 is a protein that contributes to cancer, making it a potential target for drug therapy intervention.

Battling muscle-cell cancer
Anna Zolkiewska, assistant professor of biochemistry at Kansas State University, is studying a family of proteins – known as ADAM 12 – that exist on the surface of certain cells. ADAM 12 does not normally cause cancer. However, when ADAM 12 proteins grow out of control in a muscle cell, they can lead to a cancer, known as Rhadbomyos-carcoma, that is common among children. Zolkiewska hopes to determine the reason why ADAM 12 proteins grow out of control, causing cancer. If she can figure that out, scientists might be able to develop a drug therapy to regulate the expression of the ADAM 12 proteins.

Insects and cancer study
Lorena Passarelli, assistant professor in the division of biology at Kansas State University, is studying the function of a novel viral RNA polymerase protein. This protein plays a key role in the gene expression of baculoviruses, which are DNA-carrying viruses. Although baculovir-uses do not induce cancer in humans, they are often fatal to many insects that feed on crops and forests. Passarelli’s research will focus on the similar gene expression between baculoviruses and viruses that cause cancer in humans. Ultimately, this research might be able to improve the development of vaccines or compounds important to diagnosing cancer in humans.

Unraveling genetic "words"
Katsura Asano, assistant professor, division of biology at Kansas State University, is attempting to unravel the genetic secret behind the onset of cancer. By studying how the combinations of nucleotide bases – DNA building blocks – create proteins, Asano hopes to determine what causes the alterations in gene expression that often lead to cancer. By gaining a better understanding of how cancer is generated by genetic lesions, Asano hopes to eventually help develop drug therapies to correct these errors.

Please join me in congratulating the winners of the COBRE First Award grants for 2001.