2015 Lung Cancer Research Foundation Annual Grant Program
Bruce Zetter, PhD
Boston Children's Hospital
Research Project:
Targeting lung cancer resistance through prohibitin 1
Summary:
New treatments for cancer are becoming available at an increased rate due to success building on the research progress of the past decades. As more cancer patients are now responding to their initial treatments, a new issue is emerging: cancer drug resistance. Often, after signs of shrinking tumor volume, the patient’s tumor starts to grow again in the presence of the formerly effective drug. Dr. Zetter’s laboratory has discovered that a particular protein, called prohibitin, is elevated in lung cancer cells that have become resistant to a variety of therapies. The goal of Dr. Zetter’s project is to use novel ways to block or decrease prohibitin levels in order to restore sensitivity to drugs that are no longer effective against resistant tumors. Early results suggest that this strategy works in experimental animals, and the team is now working to explain how prohibitin induces drug resistance and to develop multiple new ways to block its effects.