Frances Williams Preston Laboratories at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
Nashville, TN
Harold L. Moses, M.D., Director, Frances Williams Preston Laboratories
Raymond N. DuBois, MD, PhD, Director, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
T.J. Martell Foundation Funded Research at Frances Williams Preston Laboratories at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
We are proud to receive the continued vote of confidence and support of the T.J. Martell Foundation, which has been an important partner in our efforts to eliminate cancer since 1993. It was then that the Frances Williams Preston Laboratories were established as a “laboratory without walls” in honor of Preston, a music industry icon and president of the Martell Foundation's board. We have always used the support from the Martell Foundation to explore the most innovative frontiers of cancer research and to invest strategically in people, technology and specific high-risk/high-payoff projects. Over the years, this strategy has generated a healthy return on the Martell Foundation’s investment – the more than $15 million that we have received from the Martell Foundation has generated findings that have in turn led to more than $100 million in additional research funding from the National Institutes of Health and other sources.
We know that most cancers can be successfully treated if detected early, so while we continue research to improve current therapies and find new ones for advanced cancer, much of our focus in the Preston Laboratories has shifted to learning more about what happens early in the cancer process and finding ways to detect and stop cancer at these critical points when cure is more achievable.
We are finding that even cancers that look alike under the microscope may be very different at the molecular level and that patterns of protein expression can help us predict how tumors will respond to treatment. We also believe that these patterns, detected in tissue, blood, urine or other biologic specimens, may help us detect cancers before they can be felt or "seen" by traditional methods or even identify individuals at higher than average risk of developing cancers. Among the specific areas where we've made significant progress in this area: lung, prostate, breast and brain cancers. We're also focusing on colorectal cancer, with the hope of developing a molecularly based screening test for the second leading cancer killer in the United States within the next five years.
Another critical component of cancer prevention is better understanding what causes cancer in the first place. The study of large populations of people to uncover causes of disease (epidemiology) is another area in which Martell Foundation support has been critical. In collaboration with Meharry Medical College, our Southern Community Cohort Study is focused on understanding why African Americans and people who live in the Southeast shoulder a much greater burden from cancer than other ethnic and regional groups. We also are studying two other similar cohorts involving men and women in Shanghai; this work is shedding light on how diet and other lifestyle factors may contribute to risk for breast and prostate cancer.
Among specific recent developments within the Preston Laboratories:
-in work being readied for publication, our team has studied prostate incidence among diabetic men taking a class of drugs, glitazones, that target a molecule called peroxisome proliferator activated receptor gamma. This molecule is also known to be important in maintaining differentiation of prostate epithelial cells – that is, keeping these cells looking and behaving as prostate epithelial cells should. An early analysis of the data suggests a strong link between use of these drugs and a reduced incidence of prostate cancer. These findings, made with Martell Foundation support, have led directly to funding by the Prostate Cancer Foundation to more fully investigate this link. This work will shed light on the possible role of these drugs as way to prevent prostate cancer.
-We are uncovering new evidence to point us a new direction for cancer clues – to the nearby supporting cells called the “stroma.” Like a detective combing a crime scene for clues, researchers often target their search inside the epithelial cells because these are often the cells that become cancerous. With Martell support, our scientists have found that tumors can also develop from completely normal epithelial cells because of changes in signals in the nearby supporting cells. This work suggests a completely new set of potential causes for cancers and a fresh set of targets for intervention.
-Enrollment in the Southern Community Cohort Study has crossed the two-thirds completion mark with nearly 63,000 people recruited, more than 2/3 of them African American. The creation of this cohort will provide an invaluable “laboratory in the field” for work not only to eliminate the undue burden of cancer on African Americans but also to shed light on how cancer might be prevented for all groups. Follow-up for development of cancer and other diseases – and analysis of relationship to lifestyle, environmental factors, access to health care, and genetics – can soon begin. Because of the increased competition for NIH funding brought on by stagnation in the federal budget for biomedical research, Martell funding has been instrumental in allowing us to protect this promising research.
-With Martell Foundation support, we are enhancing our commitment to leukemia research. More than half of cases of leukemia occur when two genes break and these broken genes are repaired incorrectly, thus creating a new gene containing a portion of each of the original genes. The new gene no longer works the way the original genes did, with devastating results. We are studying three of these “leukemia genes” and have found that these new cancer-causing genes become master control switches to turn off a series of other genes. Our research is focused on understanding this effect and how it induces leukemia, with the goal of developing new therapies.
-Martell support has led to Department of Defense and NIH funding of collaborations with Meharry Medical College to address why the incidence of prostate cancer is increasing in African American men and to examine the effects of smoking on the development of the disease.
These are just a few examples of recent accomplishments that would not have been possible without the ongoing support of the Martell Foundation. The researchers and physician-scientists of the Preston Laboratories, and most importantly the patients and families impacted by cancer today and in the future, remain ever grateful to the Martell Foundation for its contributions to our work and to the worldwide fight against cancer.
To learn more
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center's Cancer Information Program, 1(800) 811-8480, or visit us on the web at http://www.vicc.org/ |