We are presenting a series of blog posts to allow you to meet some of our cancer researchers and gain a better understanding of how the projected $735 million generated annually by the passing of Prop 29 would benefit cancer research in California.

Meet Michiko Fukuda, Ph.D., professor in our NCI-designated Cancer Center.

1.  What inspired you to pursue cancer research?

Although I cannot save the many who are already suffering from cancer, I feel obligated to help those who may become cancer victims in the near future.

2.  What do you do?

My research group is developing a highly efficient chemotherapy drug that is expected to have minimal, if any, side effects.

(Editor’s note: Read more about Dr. Fukuda’s work in this blog post: Shrinking tumors with homing peptides.)

3.  What would you do with an extra $1 million for your research?

We would use such funds to further improve our drug and to facilitate clinical trials, putting our discoveries on the road to becoming treatments for patients.

Check back soon, or subscribe to this blog, to read more from the cancer researchers working each day to realize Sanford-Burnham’s motto, “From Research, the Power to Cure.”

“The entire Sanford-Burnham community of faculty, staff, trustees and donors is saddened by this loss,” said CEO John Reed, M.D., Ph.D.

A highly respected philanthropist and president of the Sophie & Arthur Brody Foundation, Mr. Brody contributed generously to the Institute over the course of 20 years. More specifically, he supported the lab of Stuart A. Lipton, M.D., Ph.D., director of our Del E. Webb Neuroscience, Aging and Stem Cell Research Center; the Stem Cell Research Center; and prostate cancer research. He also invested in young scientists through gifts to the Fishman Fund, and by serving on the Fishman Fund Advisory Board.

“As researchers, we are acutely aware of the importance of philanthropic support, particularly in these difficult times in which there is a downturn in NIH funding,” Dr. Lipton said. “It takes a visionary person like Art Brody to realize the long-term value, both financially and in lives saved, of an investment in medical research. We are fortunate to have known him both as a close friend and as a supporter. He will be truly missed.”

Mr. Brody’s largest contribution to Sanford-Burnham came in 2010, when he pledged $1 million to help support efforts to translate basic research discoveries into new medicines. The gift created the Art Brody Innovation Fund, which supports promising research projects that are just a few steps away from clinical application and that require additional support to move them from the lab and into patients.

“We are extremely grateful for Art’s support, because gifts like his allow our research to realize its full potential,” said Dr. Reed on the occasion of the pledge. “Bridging the gap between the laboratory and patients in need is at the heart of everything that we do; it is what is embodied in the Institute’s slogan, ‘From Research, the Power to Cure.’”

Because Mr. Brody achieved tremendous success as a supplier for libraries through his company Brosoar Corporation, it was fitting that Sanford-Burnham named the library on its La Jolla campus after him and his late wife, Sophie.

Arthur Brody and Phyllis Cohn at the 2010 Sanford-Burnham gala

Mr. Brody served on Sanford-Burnham’s Board of Trustees for more than a decade, between the years 2001 to 2012. He was also actively involved at the University of California, San Diego, the San Diego Public Library, and the Center of the Book at the Library of Congress.

He is survived by his longtime partner, Phyllis Cohn, herself a cherished friend of the Institute.

We are presenting a series of blog posts to allow you to meet some of our cancer researchers and gain a better understanding of how the projected $735 million generated annually by the passing of Prop 29 would benefit cancer research in California.

Meet Jochen Maurer, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Robert Oshima, Ph.D, professor in our NCI-designated Cancer Center.

1.  What inspired you to pursue cancer research?

In my opinion, cancer is one of the most pressing health issues of our time. Given our increased live span, we will see increasingly high numbers of people suffering from this terrible disease. The progress that was made in the last 50 years is minuscule compared to fields like heart disease. Since cancer is, I believe, human development gone wrong, and because I come from a developmental background, cancer research was the logical choice to pursue my interests, as well as being able to contribute something meaningful to the field of medicine.

2.  What do you do?

We have developed a method to isolate and cultivate breast cancer stem cells from patients. We think these cells are the ones driving cancer growth and potentially the ones initiating metastasis. That means that only a small portion of the cancer—the stem cells—needs to be treated. We are investigating compounds and drugs that instruct these cancer stem cells to stop multiplying and become differentiated/benign tissue. The future potential here is individualized medicine; the patient’s cancer stem cells can be isolated upon arrival in the clinic and analyzed for efficient treatments for his/her own disease. Subsequently, the patient receives perfectly matched care. The data collected in these studies will then allow for categorizing breast cancer in a new way that classifies and treats patients more efficiently.

3.  What would you do with an extra $1 million for your research?

I am at a point in my career where I would like to start my own research laboratory. Given the current research funding climate, an extra million dollars would propel my research onto the next level. I would love to work at the interface of pathology and biology to identify new ways to treat breast cancer. Extra funding would allow me to pursue my dream of an independent research career.
Check back soon, or subscribe to this blog, to read more from the cancer researchers working each day to realize Sanford-Burnham’s motto, “From Research, the Power to Cure.”

More than 20 researchers and experts participated in this year’s peer-review process to select the winners of the grants. The applications and the respective reviews were then discussed by a panel, which ranked the grants and determined the winners.

On May 1, the two grants of $75,000 each were awarded to:

• Steven Smith and Maria Diaz-Meco for their research into the role of obesity in prostate cancer progression.
• Ranjan Perera, Xianlin Han, and Adam Richardson for studying the miR-211 effect on metabolic pathways in melanoma.

The recipients were thrilled about the grants. “Knowing that the Pilot Project grants are highly competitive, I am beyond excited that my team was picked as a winner,” Perera said. “We’re especially pleased that our peers recognize the importance of our noncoding RNA research here in Lake Nona and our commitment to discovering cures for a variety of different cancers.”

Smith concurred: “Maria and I are honored to be recipients of the grant to advance our research into the role of obesity and adipose tissue in prostate cancer. This is a perfect example of the synergies between clinical and basic investigators. This bench to bedside – and back – translational research will explore cancer metabolism and linkages between two important focus areas at Sanford-Burnham – cancer and obesity.”

Congratulations to the two teams!

“This method could be widely used to discover miRNA targets in any number of disease models, under physiological conditions,” Rana said. “miR-TRAP will help bridge a gap in the RNA field, allowing researchers to better understand diseases like cancer and target their genetic underpinnings to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics. This will become especially important as new high-throughput RNA sequencing technologies increase the numbers of known miRNAs and their targets.”

How miR-TRAP works

miRNAs block gene expression not by attaching directly to the DNA itself, but by binding to messenger RNA (mRNA), the type that normally carries a DNA recipe out of the nucleus and into the cytoplasm, where the sequence is translated into protein. Next, these RNAs are bound by a group of proteins called the RNA-induced silencing complex, or RISC. This blocks production of the protein encoded by that mRNA, an action that can have far-reaching consequences in the cell.

miR-TRAP

miR-TRAP is performed in three basic steps. Scientists 1) produce highly photoreactive probes by conjugating psoralen, a plant molecule that can be activated by light, to an miRNA of interest, 2) perform a long-wave UV photocrosslinking reaction, and 3) pull down RNA and analyze it by RT-qPCR. In other words, scientists zap cells with UV light, freezing the miRNA/mRNA duo in place. Then, after extracting the RNA from the cells, they can take a closer look at the sequence of the bound mRNA, revealing the miRNA’s target gene.

Advantages of miR-TRAP

miR-TRAP is easier and more accurate than current methods of identifying miRNA targets for three main reasons. First, miR-TRAP can directly identify miRNA targets in live cells, under normal or disease conditions. Second, this technique can spot mRNA targets that are not only reduced by miRNAs, but also those whose translation into protein is repressed—targets that aren’t normally picked up by other techniques, such as qPCR or microarray analysis. Third, miR-TRAP doesn’t rely on antibodies, which can lead to nonspecific background signals and complicate data interpretation.

Putting miR-TRAP to the test, Rana and his team, including postdoctoral researcher Huricha Baigude, Ph.D., analyzed 13 predicted targets of two important microRNAs. The technique not only confirmed their known gene targets, but also revealed two novel targets.

“We’re now applying these methods to identify miRNA targets in a number of disease models,” Rana said. “And it’s our hope that miR-TRAP will soon become common practice in many labs around the world.”

###
Original paper:
Baigude H, Ahsanullah, Li Z, Zhou Y, & Rana TM (2012). miR-TRAP: A Benchtop Chemical Biology Strategy to Identify microRNA Targets. Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) PMID: 22566243

There are three main benefits to drug repurposing—it’s safer, faster, and cheaper. Since a repurposed drug has already passed a significant number of toxicity and other tests, its risks are better known and the chance of failure is reduced. More than 90 percent of new drugs fail during development, contributing to the high cost of pharmaceutical research and development. A new therapy based on a repurposed drug could benefit patients sooner—ultimately saving and improving more lives.

In the past, drug repurposing efforts were hampered by the lack of a complete drug collection. Fortunately, a comprehensive listing of clinically approved drugs was recently made available by the NIH. Now, in order to make the promise of drug repurposing a reality, Sanford-Burnham researchers are building the world’s most comprehensive library (collection) of repurposed drugs, which can be leveraged against our strengths in stem cell biology, phenotypic cell-based screening, and high-throughput drug screening. Moreover, this library will be made available to other non-profit research institutions to advance translational medicine.

Despite the promise of drug repurposing, serendipitous discovery of new applications for existing drugs happens rarely, and only at the point when people are actually taking them. With the advent of stem cell-based human disease models—called disease in a dish—researchers can now test large numbers of approved drugs for their efficacy against a number of diseases before they reach clinical testing in humans. In this technique, researchers at Sanford-Burnham and elsewhere take skin samples from a patient or healthy volunteer, dial them back developmentally to stem cells, and induce their differentiation into the desired cell type (neurons, for example, if studying Alzheimer’s disease). The advantage to disease-in-a-dish modeling is that it generates large numbers of otherwise hard-to-access cell types, complete with an individual’s genetic and epigenetic make-up—making it a valuable tool for discovering and developing therapies that are more personalized to the individual.

Using cells from a patient with muscular dystrophy and a small library of FDA-approved drugs, Sanford-Burnham scientists have already identified a series of agents that reverse the functional defect causing the disease, providing an initial proof-of-concept for this approach. Spurred on by this exciting data, the team is now developing disease-in-a-dish screens for other genetic diseases.

While we are making substantial progress, one challenge is the incompleteness of the current drug repurposing library available to us. The more complete this library, the greater the chance we will find a drug that can potentially be repurposed to treat a child with a genetic condition like muscular dystrophy or other diseases.

“Regrettably, pharmaceutical companies are not likely to engage in drug repurposing efforts for rare childhood diseases,” Sanford-Burnham’s Layton Smith told Drug Discovery News. “This is in part due to the smaller patient populations and challenges in running clinical trials in these indications. In addition, competition with generic drugs makes this effort commercially unviable, in spite of its great potential to benefit human health. Even if companies were motivated to engage in these efforts, it is very difficult for the pharmaceutical industry to perform the type of screens Sanford-Burnham is doing because of their limited access to patient samples.”

Non-profit research institutes such as Sanford-Burnham, on the other hand, are well positioned to respond to this market and research opportunity.

We are presenting a series of blog posts to allow you to meet some of our cancer researchers and gain a better understanding of how the projected $735 million generated annually by the passing of Prop 29 would benefit cancer research in California.

Meet Hongbo Pang, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Erkki Ruoslahti, M.D., Ph.D.

1.  What inspired you to pursue cancer research?

After hundreds of years, it’s still troublesome to diagnose or treat cancer. And I’ve lost someone very close to me to lung cancer. Both factors inspire me to pursue cancer research.

2.  What do you do?

I’m looking for peptides specifically targeting tumor cells, and working to link anti-cancer drugs to these peptides.

3.  What would you do with an extra $1 million for your research?

I would extend my discovery of tumor-targeting peptides to various cancer types, and be better able to develop them for diagnosis, imaging, and treatment tools.

Check back soon, or subscribe to this blog, to read more from the cancer researchers working each day to realize Sanford-Burnham’s motto, “From Research, the Power to Cure.”

A $4.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will fund the five-year search to find new ways of treating glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and lethal form of brain cancer. Primary brain tumors are among the top 10 causes of cancer death in the U.S., and more than 80,000 Americans have primary malignant brain tumors.

“The exceptional team assembled for this study will mine vast amounts of data to come up with possible cancer vulnerabilities and the most promising ways to attack glioblastoma, giving new hope to brain-tumor patients,” said Michael Berens, Ph.D., director of TGen’s Cancer and Cell Biology Division and principal investigator of the project.

Glioblastoma grows rapidly and commonly spreads to nearby brain tissue. It is usually treated by surgical removal of as much of the tumor as possible, followed by radiation and conventional chemotherapy. The prognosis is very poor, and patients survive a median of only 14 months after diagnosis.

The goal of this study is to use newly uncovered knowledge about the genomes of hundreds of glioblastoma specimens to discover new medicines that can precisely target tumors, shrinking or even eliminating them, with minimal harm to other cells and minimal side effects for patients.

In a discovery phase, TGen, VARI, and Thomson Reuters will conduct the most extensive scan ever undertaken of available public data about the potential genetic causes of glioblastoma. This search will identify the most promising genes and cellular pathways to target. These targets will be referenced against a database of 54 patient tumor models, looking for small molecules that could lead the way to new cancer drugs.

The resulting pre-clinical drug-treatment models will be tested and validated by Sanford-Burnham, creating the best available data to share with the general scientific community, including pharmaceutical companies.

“We hope to put the scientific and technical competency of chemical biology at Sanford-Burnham to work in this study, helping to generate prototypes of new medicines that could eventually be delivered to patients who desperately need them,” said Kristiina Vuori, M.D., Ph.D., Sanford-Burnham’s president and director of the Institute’s NCI-designated Cancer Center.

In addition, the study team will meet monthly with the NCI’s Cancer Target Discovery and Development (CTDD) Network, sharing best practices that will help other researchers avoid duplication and pursue the most promising lines of investigation. The CTDD Network goal is to bridge the gap between the enormous volumes of genomic data generated by the comprehensive molecular characterization of various cancer types and the ability to use these data for the development of human cancer therapeutics.

“The computational tools we have developed to enable personalized medicine will comb through extensive data sets, looking to systematically identify novel drug targets and match the best available therapies with patients’ individual tumors,” said Craig Webb, Ph.D., head of VARI’s Laboratory of Translational Medicine, which brings to the study expertise in bioinformatics and personalized medicine. “Working closely with the CTDD Network will ensure that our ongoing research remains cutting-edge.”

In addition to the team led by TGen, the CTDD Network consists of: Columbia University, Emory University, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, University of California San Francisco, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and the Broad Institute.

The MetaCore and MetaMiner (oncology) offerings from Thomson Reuters provide some of the world’s best applications for systems biology in the analysis of cellular pathways, the cascade of chemical events that take place within the lifecycles of normal and cancerous cells.

“Our unique biological systems technology enables complete reconstruction of mammalian cellular functionality, providing precise tumor analysis and accelerating target discovery,” said Yuri Nikolsky, Ph.D., vice president of Research & Development at Thomson Reuters.

The study, formally titled “Systematic Development of Novel, Druggable Cancer Targets,” will build on information from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), an NCI project. TCGA is assembling vast bodies of information about how errors in DNA cause cells to grow uncontrolled, causing cancer. The TCGA is focused on several types of cancer, including glioblastoma.

“The study’s combination of bioinformatics and experimental approaches is innovative, and should enable development of novel molecular targets not only in GBM, but also in multiple cancer types,” TGen’s Berens said.

This research is supported by the National Cancer Institute, under Award Number U01CA168397.

We are presenting a series of blog posts to allow you to meet some of our cancer researchers and gain a better understanding of how the projected $735 million generated annually by the passing of Prop 29 would benefit cancer research in California.

Meet William Stallcup, Ph.D. a professor in Sanford-Burnham’s NCI-designated Cancer Center who has been with the Institute since 1984. He explains what are, in his opinion, the biggest financial challenges currently facing cancer research:

We face three major financial problems at a time when it is increasingly difficult to secure federal research funds.

The first problem is retaining our postdoctoral scientists for sufficient lengths of time to obtain and then effectively use their training. In many cases, it takes several years for the studies carried out by these postdoctoral students to begin to pay dividends. If we lose our young postdoctoral staff prematurely due to lack of funding, it becomes impossible to maintain any continuity in the studies being carried out in the lab.

The second financial problem, maybe a surprise to many people, is paying for the creation and maintenance of the genetically engineered mouse models that allow us to study diseases like cancer. Since we can’t do experimental studies on people, the next best thing is to create a mouse that is genetically predisposed to develop the disease. Because of mouse/man genetic similarities, discoveries made in mice often apply also to humans. But paying for these mouse colonies is expensive. There are labs at our Institute that spend more than $100,000 annually for the creation and maintenance of their specialized mice.

The third problem is finding resources to take new, innovative approaches to research problems. It is ironic that most research awards are given for work that has already been largely done. In other words, you can’t get a research grant unless you can show that you have already succeeded in solving significant parts of the problem and can document this success with published or soon-to-be-published data. We need to have some means of supporting the initial risky work required to support the assembly and submission of these successful grant applications.

Check back soon, or subscribe to this blog, to read more from the cancer researchers working each day to realize Sanford-Burnham’s motto, “From Research, the Power to Cure.”

It’s always a pleasure to get the opportunity to highlight Sanford-Burnham’s research to visitors coming to the Institute. I’m from the Netherlands and on April 18 I had the special honor of giving the Dutch Consul-General, Ambassador Simone Filippini, a tour of our facilities at Lake Nona. The Ambassador was touring Orlando’s Medical City to learn about the region’s emerging biomedical cluster and opportunities to grow the United States-Netherlands trade and investment in the biomedical/biotechnology sector.

Ambassador Filippini is no stranger to Florida and its economy, being based at the Dutch Consulate in Miami, which is in charge of several southern U.S. states in addition to Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Cayman Islands. The Consul-General can have a great impact on stimulating inter-country business development, especially since the U.S. and the Netherlands share so many common values, history, and a commitment to innovation.The Ambassador and her intern were accompanied by Patrick C. Willemsen, the Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Orlando, and Thaddeus Seymour, who oversees health and life science investments at Lake Nona. Sanford-Burnham communications specialist Patrick Bartosch and I had the chance to explain how the Institute’s technology and core facilities enable state-of-the-art research and drug discovery towards therapies for complex diseases and how Sanford-Burnham plays a key role in the development of a life science cluster in Orlando’s Medical City.

Ambassador Filippini was very impressed by our facilities and the Institute’s work to advance basic medical research through collaborations and I was honored to represent the Institute. Opportunities like this begin the dialogue about trade and biomedical research investment relations between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the United States. I am sure the Dutch consul-general won’t be the last diplomat to visit the Institute. Sanford-Burnham is such an international place to work, we may see more posts like this one in the future!

Darrin, originally from the Netherlands, is manager of the Protein Production and Analysis Core in Lake Nona.

Revenue generated by Prop 29 will stay in California. Section 2 of Prop 29 clearly states that the initiative’s purpose is to fund: (1) grants and loans for biomedical, epidemiological, behavioral, health services, and other research in California, (2) creation, staffing and equipping of California research facilities engaged in biomedical, epidemiological, behavioral, health services, and (3) increased efforts to reduce tobacco use in the State.

Scientists and patient advocates, not politicians, will oversee research funding generated by Prop 29. In Section 3 (page 6), Prop 29 proposes to create the HOPE 2010 Cancer Research Citizens Oversight Committee, which will establish a process for and make final decisions on soliciting, reviewing, and awarding grants and loans for research, facilities, and patient treatment. The committee will consist of nine members: (1) one member affiliated with a California Academic Medical Center; (2) three members selected from among the Cancer Center Directors of National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers located within the State of California; (3) the Chancellor from each of the campuses of the University of California that is a member of the California Institute for Quantitative Biological Research; (4) two members appointed by the Director of the California Department of Public Health, the appointments to be selected from among California representatives of California or national disease advocacy groups whose focus is tobacco-related illness, at least one of whom shall be a person who has been treated for a tobacco-related illness.

The first two types of committee members listed above will be appointed by California’s governor, but they are not politicians or lobbyists. In fact, Section 3 of Prop 29 goes on to say that, “No person who is required to register as a lobbyist under the provisions of any law of the United States, the State of California or any local government, is eligible for appointment to the Committee.”

The full text of Proposition 29: the California Cancer Research Act can be viewed here.

They wrote:

In addition to saving lives and lowering health care costs, passage of Prop 29 will help stimulate the state’s economy by creating and saving jobs in California. The biotechnology industry has been a shining example of stability and growth in our state over the past several decades, and is an area we should be turning to now to help our state recover from economic decline.

Today, California is home to several of the most vibrant life-science research clusters in the world, including 10 of the country’s 66 NCI-designated cancer centers (more than any other state in the nation). The San Francisco Bay Area boasts the oldest and largest biomedical cluster in California and is a world leader in biotechnology. San Diego is known for its biopharmaceutical and medical diagnostics companies, while Orange County has a reputation for medical device inventions and Los Angeles is the place for cutting-edge cancer research and patient care.

As of 2009, the biotechnology industry employed nearly 270,000 Californians. And that number jumps to more than 783,000 jobs when we include everyone employed in academic research, biopharmaceuticals, diagnostics, medical devices, laboratory services and other supporting industries.

Yet global financial woes and diminishing support from the federal government – the National Institutes of Health in particular – will negatively impact California’s biomedical industry for years to come. Passage of Prop. 29 would be instrumental in further enhancing our state as a global leader in biomedicine, in enhancing our ability to retain and create jobs in the biotechnology industry and in fully delivering on the promise of bringing new live-saving strategies to the patients who need them.

The choice is simple. Prop. 29, the California Cancer Research Act, will benefit every Californian by lowering health care costs in the state, by enhancing California’s economy and by funding lifesaving research that produces new diagnostics, treatments and cures for patients.

Click here to read the full article.
Click here to meet a few of Sanford-Burnham’s cancer researchers whose life-saving work could benefit from Prop 29′s passage.

What are your thoughts on Prop 29? Please leave a comment below or tweet us at @SanfordBurnham.

Together with the Florida Department of Health, Sanford-Burnham will develop a competitive grant program, based on peer-review that will provide funds for collaborative projects between Florida-based research scientists and Sanford-Burnham’s fully operational, state-of-the-art drug discovery technology center based at Lake Nona.

“This program exemplifies what is at the heart of Sanford-Burnham’s mission – collaboration,” said Layton Smith. “From the moment we established our facility in Orlando’s Medical City at Lake Nona, our goal has been to advance science throughout Florida by engaging with partners from across the state. The Collaborative Research Grant program allows us to take that effort to the next level and to develop a pipeline of potential new therapies to meet today’s most urgent medical needs.”

The Collaborative Research Grant program affords Florida’s biomedical research community with an advantage in the global competition for commercial investment in research and development. This novel approach efficiently uses state funding to accelerate the growth of Florida’s emerging life-sciences industry, and helps move discoveries to a stage that will be attractive for commercial investment.

The program represents a crucial next step in the evolution of Florida’s emerging life-sciences community and is supported by researchers and organizations across the state. “I cannot think of any initiative that would better leverage the investments that the State of Florida has already made in biomedical research in the past decade,” said Dr. Claes Wahlestedt, professor and associate dean for Therapeutic Innovation at the University of Miami’s School of Medicine. “The likely successful outcomes of the proposed small molecule screening efforts would generate Florida-based intellectual property and help build Florida’s emerging biotechnology industry by generating new job opportunities.”

The PSA test measures levels of prostate-specific antigen, a protein produced by the prostate gland, in the blood. Men normally have low PSA levels in their blood, but prostate cancer can increase it, making PSA a useful tumor marker.

How does the test detect PSA? The underlying technology is known as the ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), a widely used research and diagnostic tool first invented at Stockholm University in 1971 by Dr. Peter Perlmann and Dr. Eva Engvall, who has been a faculty member at Sanford-Burnham since 1979.

The ELISA is used by research and diagnostic labs all over the world to determine the presence and quantity of a particular protein, chemical, or pathogen is present in a sample such as blood or urine. Besides PSA, ELISA can detect allergies, HIV, West Nile virus, malaria, blood glucose concentrations, pregnancy, food-borne pathogens, and much, much more. (To learn more about how ELISA works, visit this 2011 blog post celebrating the technique’s 40th birthday.)

According to the American Cancer Society, 240,890 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2011, and 33,720 men died of it. These numbers are telling—most men with prostate cancer survive the disease, perhaps in part to early detection.

We are presenting a series of blog posts to allow you to meet some of our cancer researchers and gain a better understanding of how the projected $735 million generated annually by the passing of Prop 29 would benefit cancer research in California.

Meet Guy Salvesen, Ph.D., professor and director of the Apoptosis & Cell Death Program in Sanford-Burnham’s National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center.

1.  What inspired you to pursue cancer research?

Like many of us, members of my family and several friends have been diagnosed with cancer over the years. I have seen success and failure in therapy, and I am saddened by the somewhat ineffective treatment outcomes. This is the best we can do, and it is not enough. The scientific community, as brilliant as it is, simply does not understand the mechanisms that cause most cancers well enough to provide appropriate therapy. We did not invent the mechanisms that rule the life and death of cancer cells, but we must understand them before we can suggest appropriate diagnosis and therapy to the medical community. I decided some years ago that my laboratory should focus on the fundamental mechanisms that cause normal cells to become cancer cells.

2.  What do you do?

To understand why normal cells become cancerous has been, and will be, an uphill battle fought by highly gifted scientists. I am a biochemist. My role in this battle is to examine at a biochemical level the “signaling nodes” that define the balance between survival and death of cancer cells. Current science suggests that some signaling nodes are crucial in cellular life/death decisions and present outstanding targets for anti-cancer therapies. I hope that our work, combined with that of the larger cancer research community, will reveal the correct nodes for therapeutic targeting.

3.  What would you do with an extra $1 million?

Scientists have proposed a particular signaling node that, when inappropriately controlled at the biochemical level, leads towards lymphoma and myeloma. My laboratory is investigating this node (the CBM complex). We would dedicate funding to providing diagnostic and therapeutic tools that are designed to specifically impact this node to enhance the survival and lifestyle of people diagnosed with lymphoma or myeloma. I think we need to broaden the ways in which we perform cancer research; we need new insights and new techniques. Specifically, I would seek to expand our team by employing talented young interdisciplinary scientists who would look at this project in unconventional ways. Fortunately, these people, and the specialized resources they need, are available at Sanford-Burnham.

Check back soon, or subscribe to this blog, to read more from the cancer researchers working each day to realize Sanford-Burnham’s motto, “From Research, the Power to Cure.”