Virginia Commonwealth University
VCU Massey Cancer Center
Research atMassey


Research highlights

Excerpts from Massey’s Philanthropic Review, October 2009

As a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, Massey’s main mission is to help lead and shape the nation’s efforts to defeat cancer through research. Our success is measured by the growth in funding from the NCI, earned by Massey researchers through a fiercely competitive, peer-reviewed process.

Massey’s 175 faculty researchers have made new discoveries that met the highest standards of scientific rigor, validated in prestigious professional journals and confirmed by collaborations with the finest cancer research institutions across the country. Here are some of our exciting accomplishments in the national arena.

New discoveries

  • Andrew Larner, M.D., Ph.D., showed that a previously known protein, Stat3, plays a role in the energy production of cells, which could suggest new ways to treat diseases, such as cancer, that have imbalances between energy demands and energy generation. He and Massoud Manjili, Ph.D., D.V.M., are now conducting a breast cancer study in mice involving this protein, as published in Science.
  • Frank Fang, Ph.D., and Jolene Windle, Ph.D., demonstrated in mouse models that a specific receptor may function as a tumor suppressor gene that inhibits invasion in human cancer cells, as published in Molecular Biology of the Cell.
  • In related studies of cancer metastasis, Paul Fisher, M.Ph., Ph.D., and Devanand Sarkar, Ph.D., demonstrated that a gene co-discovered by Fisher promotes metastasis in human malignant melanoma, as published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
  • Another project with Fisher and Sarkar on the mda-7/IL24 gene, co-discovered by Fisher, showed that autocrine regulation of mda-7 leads to cancer cell death, as published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
  • In related collaborative studies, Paul Dent, Ph.D., in collaboration with William Broaddus, M.D., Ph.D., Steven Grant, M.D., Viswanathan Ramakrishnan, Ph.D., Sarkar, and Fisher, showed that mda-7/IL24 plus radiation significantly prolonged survival in animals with intracranial primary human glioblastomas, as published in Cancer Biology Therapeutics.
  • In studies of the rejection or recurrence of HER-2/neμ positive mammary tumors, Manjili and Harry Bear, M.D., Ph.D., determined the mechanisms that lead to failure to reject the tumor. This result is the basis of ongoing studies of immune signatures in patient-derived breast cancers that are either recurrent or non-recurrent after initial therapy, as published in Cancer Research.
  • Deborah Lebman, Ph.D., and Sarah Spiegel, Ph.D., identified an oncoprotein involved in the spread of invasive esophageal cancer cells, as published in Molecular and Cellular Biology.
  • A collaborative project with Elizabeth Weiss, M.D., Ramakrishnan, and Paul Keall, Ph.D. (Stanford University), demonstrated the potential feasibility of intensity-modulated radiation therapy for lung cancer patients based on automated therapy contours generated by image registration in four-dimensional computed tomography, as published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology and Physics.
  • Collaborative studies by Dent, Grant, Fisher, Sarkar, Ray Lee, M.D., Ph.D., and Martin Graf, Ph.D., showed that adding Vorinostat to Sorafenib results in synergistic killing of gastrointestinal carcinoma cells, as published in both Clinical Cancer Researchand Molecular Cancer Therapy.
  • Ongoing studies of Grant and Dent aim to elucidate cell signaling pathways that are altered in cancer cells in order to develop rational therapeutic combinations of signaling inhibitors and other molecularly targeted agents. Their recent studies have shown how two inhibitors interact synergistically to kill chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells, as published in Clinical Cancer Research.These results have led to an NCI-supported Phase I trial of these agents led by Beata Holkova, M.D.

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Cancer prevention and control research

  • A national study led by Bruce Hillner, M.D., showed the critical impact of positron emission tomography scanning in the initial management of cancer patients. Clinicians’ use of PET scanning changed treatment decisions in more than one-third of cases and avoided planned biopsies in 70 percent of cases. The study provides critical data that could potentially change the standard of care in cancer diagnosis, as published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
  • Widely noted publications by Thomas Smith, M.D., and Laurie Lyckholm, M.D., addressed the use of chemotherapy at the end of life. They explored the reasons why people choose chemotherapy at the end of life. They also showed that 16 to 20 percent of patients receive chemotherapy within 14 days of death, and that Medicare uses 25 percent of its total expenditures on care in the last month of life, as published in the Journal of the American Medical Association; Oncology.
  • Laura Siminoff, Ph.D., published groundbreaking work in how communication techniques can be used to enhance patient treatment outcomes as well as satisfaction with treatment. Importantly, this work also addresses the key role of communication with patients in increasing enrollment in clinical trials, which is currently an important issue in reduction of cancer morbidity and mortality, as published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

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FDA approval and intellectual property development

  • Richard Moran, Ph.D., and his group uncovered a new molecular mechanism of action of pemetrexed, which he originally developed in collaboration with chemists at Eli Lilly and Princeton University, and which the FDA recently approved as a first-line agent in non-small cell lung cancer, one of the most common and fatal cancers. Suspecting that premetrexed had another mechanism of action due to its unexpected activity against solid tumors, they uncovered a novel mechanism through which the drug inhibits a specific cancer cell signaling pathway. This led to intellectual property development and further collaboration with Lilly to develop premetrexed derivatives specific to that pathway.

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Other breakthrough research from Massey

 

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VCU Massey Cancer Center
401 College Street, P.O. Box 980037
Richmond, Virginia 23298-0037
Phone: (804) 828-0450  Fax: (804) 828-8453
Last updated: 11/12/2009

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