Funding from Meaghan’s Run has supported radiation oncologist Yuhchyau Chen, M.D., Ph.D. from the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center and her team of lung cancer research specialists. For people like Meaghan, who do not have the typical risk factor of smoking for lung cancer, research in seeking other cancer markers is highly desirable.

 

 

 

To date, there are no approved serum markers for lung cancer. With the funding support from Meaghan’s Run, our research team has collected clinical information of 65 lung cancer patients and processed blood samples in the planning for lung cancer marker investigations. We also conducted lung cancer marker research in the laboratory using lung cancer cell lines. We presented our laboratory work at the 100^th Annual Meeting of American Association of Cancer Research in year 2009 (Poster presentation: Nowak I, Huang J, Chen Y. Erk MAP-kinase signaling-associated neuroendocrine differentiation of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell line AACR 100^th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, April 18-22, 2009).

 

 

 

We are in the process of planning for the serum marker studies for lung cancer. With this preliminary research we will be submitting a research proposal to the National Cancer Institute and other funding agencies in competing for external research grants in early 2011 to further this research continually. If the grant funding is received then future funding from Meaghan’s Run can start additional lung cancer research projects.

 

09/30/11

Gail,

We appreciate the support from Meaghan’s Hope through the annual Meaghan’s Run. 

Here is a brief summary of the progress:

With the funding support, we have gathered clinical data of lung cancer patients and collected blood samples of these patients. We have identified a few potential markers in the blood from these patient samples. These are markers of specific subtypes of lung cancers.

In addition, we took lung cancer cells in culture and induced the expression of certain lung cancer markers. Through this approach, we identified a potential cellular molecular pathway for lung cancer cells to express certain markers.  The discovery from this work has allowed us to prepare a manuscript for the submission for publication.

Further, we plan to apply for federal funding to allow us to expand on the work of lung cancer markers in the application to possible cancer diagnosis, predict treatment response, predict prognosis, monitor treatment efficacy, and to discover potential molecular targets for the treatment. 

Please let me know if this is too technical, or if I should provide more explanations on certain parts.

Thanks again for the wonderful work you do.

Best regards,

Yuhchyau
Yuhchyau Chen, MD, PhD
Professor and Interim Chair
Department of Radiation Oncology
James P. Wilmot Cancer Center