The University of Illinois Cancer Center has selected the proposal, “Tissue Microenvironmental Regulation of Pre-Cancer Progression to Invasive Lung Cancer,” for a $150,000 Team Science Award. The project is led by Cancer Center Co-Principal Investigators Jalees Rehman, MD; Andrei Karginov, PhD; Ekrem Emrah Er, PhD; Ameen Salahudeen, MD, PhD; and Alexander Adibekian, PhD.
The goal of the Cancer Center’s Team Science Award is to catalyze the submission of cancer-focused multi-project applications (Program Project (P-) or Cooperative Agreement (U-) type grant mechanisms) to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Team science is a collaborative and cross-disciplinary approach to scientific inquiry that draws researchers, who otherwise would work independently or as coinvestigators on smaller-scale projects, into collaborative centers and groups.
The award budget period starts February 1 and runs 12 months. The Cancer Center will award Investigators $75,000 immediately and then the remaining $75,000 after they submit a mid-year progress report.
Project Description
The Team Science project is described below.
Lungs are continuously exposed to pollutants and toxic chemicals, which can change the genes of cells in the lungs resulting in cancer developing from what is called “pre-cancer” cells. Pre-cancer refers to the time-period between the acquisition of oncogenic traits by cells and progression to cancer. While most of these pre-cancer cells do not develop into cancer, we still do not understand why. How do the lungs prevent the formation of cancer for millions of cells, and yet, in rare cases, fail? Current hypotheses are either based on in vitro data or inferred from analysis of already established tumors, models which lack experimental evidence demonstrating the sequence of events that occur in vivo. Our goal is to establish key interactions between the tumor cell and its microenvironment that occur at the early stages of tumor initiation and its progression into an invasive tumor. This research could lead to improved screening, including new therapies that would allow healthcare providers to “freeze” pre-cancer cells in time and prevent them from becoming aggressive.
About the PIs
The project co-PIs are part of the Cancer Center Translational Oncology (TO) and Cancer Biology (CB) research programs.
Rehman is TO co-leader and the Benjamin Goldberg Professor and Head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago; Karginov, part of CB, is Associate Professor of Pharmacology in the Department of Pharmacology and Regenerative Medicine at the College of Medicine; Er, part of CB, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the College of Medicine; Salahudeen, part of TO, is Assistant Professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the College of Medicine and an oncologist who cares for patients at UI Health; and Adibekian, part of TO, is Professor in the UIC Department of Chemistry.