Northwestern biologists will use one of the department’s largest new grants to study the aggressive patterns of cancer cell movement and early detection of ovarian cancer, the director of the new Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence said Thursday.
NU received the $3.92 million grant last week from the National Cancer Institute to fund the new nanotechnology center, director Kathleen Cook said. It is part of an undetermined five-year grant, said Steven Rosen, an executive committee member for the center and director of NU’s Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Research will combine the efforts of the Lurie Center and NU’s International Institute for Nanotechnology. It will take place in existing facilities on both the Evanston and Chicago campuses. The new center will support six interdisciplinary teams of nanoscientists, cancer biologists, engineers and clinicians, Rosen said. Each team is composed of graduate and postdoctoral students and more than 40 faculty members. Rosen said this “bridges the gap” between the different disciplines.
“All of the research teams and project leaders have longstanding research in their areas,” said Jill Pelling, associate director for the nanotechnology center and for Translational Research at the Lurie Center. “The six teams are new projects based upon the strengths of each group’s nanoscience and cancer research.”
Nanotechnology deals with particles a million times smaller than a pinhead. It can be applied toward finding therapeutic approaches for cancers by targeting specific cells, Rosen said.
“More recently the nanoscientists and researchers are understanding the powerful potential that nanotechnology has for treating human disease,” Pelling said. “There is great potential for treating neurological disease, infectious disease and cancer with these nanotherapies.”
It is such treatments that excite Communication junior Lauren Greenwood, who has experienced the effects of cancer first hand.
“When I was born, my mother had thyroid cancer, and now my uncle is fighting cancer,” Greenwood said. “Seeing time, money and effort being put into research is very close to me and means a lot on a personal level. I hope that they keep taking steps toward better therapies and treatments. You can hope and pray that a cure for cancer will be found.”
One therapy the center will work on is a “smart nanoscale cargo bin,” which acts as a so-called “smart bomb” to treat cancer, she said.
“When a woman has breast cancer, she gets chemotherapy and a lot of the cells in her body are affected because the cancer drug is toxic,” Pelling said. “With the smart bomb, the cancer drug is coated with an antibody that would move the drug directly to the cancer. The cancer is being directly targeted.”
Research in early detection and cancer treatment is important, but the general public should also be more educated, said Colleen Plein, a Weinberg senior. Women need to be taught about self breast exams and men need to know the signs of prostate cancer, she said.
“I’d like to see more initiative with education, not necessarily with the university, but people making others aware through educational programs,” Plein said.
Reach Margaret Matray at [email protected].
