UD, Christiana Care jointly combat cancer

2:32 p.m., June 14, 2005--With Delaware battling high cancer incidence and death rates, the University of Delaware and Christiana Care are working cooperatively to accelerate research and improve the ability to quickly translate laboratory findings to better assist physicians and their patients.

The collaboration is expected to have tremendous benefits for patients in the region, as well as for UD scientists, who will have access to vital research materials and a fresh perspective from the front lines of the fight against cancer, and for Christiana Care clinicians, who will have immediate access to new and evolving information.

“This collaborative effort between the cancer program clinicians and the scientists at UD is building the infrastructure for translational research. The public will eventually benefit from this cancer research since it is part of a global program to decrease the high cancer incidence and mortality in the state of Delaware,” Dr. Nicholas J. Petrelli, the MBNA endowed medical director of the Christiana Care Helen F. Graham Cancer Center, said. “The public needs to know that high-quality cancer research is ongoing in their own backyard.”

Working directly with Petrelli during an upcoming sabbatical will be Mary C. Farach-Carson, UD professor of biological sciences, who has a long and distinguished background in cancer research. Farach-Carson has studied osteosarcoma, a form of bone cancer, and is now working with other forms of tumors, particularly of the prostate and breast, that tend to metastasize to bone. Currently, she is part of a $7.6 million National Cancer Institute research project headed by Emory University and designed to study the pathways and mechanisms for prostate cancer metastasis to bone.

The collaboration with Christiana Care will provide Farach-Carson opportunities to attend clinical conferences that will provide her “a better feel for the things we need to look at from the research perspective and also for the needs of patients.”

“As a researcher, you do not get that firsthand experience for what it is like from the perspective of the clinician or the patient,” she said. “I talk about cancer all the time, but I am far from the front line of decision making about patient treatment.”

In addition to studying the basic biology of cancer, Farach-Carson said the collaboration provides an opportunity for translational research, or research that can be taken directly from the laboratory to the clinician for application in the treatment of patients. “The collaborative work provides for constant feedback between researcher and clinician,” she said. “We actually do things that can translate back quickly for use by the clinician, and not simply publish papers.”

A key benefit of the collaboration for UD researchers is the ability to acquire samples through a tissue bank established by Christiana Care.

Eric Kmiec, professor of biological sciences whose laboratory is in the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, was one of the first UD researchers to use the new tissue bank. Part of Kmiec's research focuses on a gene that is believed to have a role in the formation of tumors in the lung. "The project has been accelerated by the development of this tissue center," Kmiec said. "There is no replacement in the evolution of therapeutic applications than the use of primary cells and tissue."

“You can gain critical insights from the cells in these tissues,” Farach-Carson said. “It is much more helpful than obtaining cells from commercial lines that have been there for years and years, and provides an important opportunity to learn about genetic expression in cancer cells.”

Farach-Carson is studying digitized tissue arrays, multicolored images of patients’ DNA, the chemical substance found in the nucleus of every living cell, to search for biomarkers that might offer clues that relate to the progression of cancer. “The progression of the disease is so variable from person to person,” she said. “Some patients respond to certain treatments, and some do not. By studying cells from a large number of people, we can look for biomarkers that provide clues as to possible responses and, in turn, help clinicians fine tune their prognoses.”

Now, physicians may have four or five treatment options for a given patient but can only guess at the optimal treatment, Farach-Carson said. “Maybe the first and second treatments fail but the third works. If we knew sooner that the third treatment would work, perhaps we could improve longevity and quality of life,” she said.

The physicians, in turn, can provide the researchers feedback as to which patients respond to which treatments.

“If we can extend life six months, that can be a huge thing for families to deal with,” Farach-Carson said, adding, “This is a very fulfilling project to be working on.”

Farach-Carson said both the UD researchers and the Christiana Care physicians are enthusiastic about the collaboration, a fact borne out by the participation of two Christiana Care surgeons, Dr. Thomas Bauer and Dr. Koren Miller, in research being conducted by Kmiec. That work has led to the submission of a grant to the National Cancer Institute to train surgical residents in cancer research.

Other UD scientists participating in the collaborative effort are Mary Ann McLane, associate professor of medical technology, and Carlton Cooper and Robert Sikes, both assistant professors of biological sciences.

Article by Neil Thomas

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