$4.1 million from NIH to UGA researchers

More terrific news from Franklin College scientists in the CCRC:

Ovarian and pancreatic cancers are among the most deadly, not because they are impossible to cure, but because they are difficult to find. There are no screening tests that can reliably detect their presence in early stages, and most diagnoses are made after the disease has already spread to lymph nodes and vital organs.

But University of Georgia cancer researchers Karen Abbott and Michael Pierce are exploring new methods of detecting these silent killers using the most advanced technologies available. They recently received two, five-year grants from the National Institutes of Health totaling more than $4.1 million to support their projects. Their work promises to help find the cancers early, when doctors have the best chance to help their patients fight the disease.

"Almost every cancer can be successfully treated if it is diagnosed early enough," said Pierce, Distinguished Research Professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and director of the UGA Cancer Center. "If we and others can identify something that helps us find the cancer very early, we will save lives."

There are so many people for whom more breakthroughs on this front cannot come soon enough.

"The problem for finding a marker for cancers like that is that they are all so different," said Abbott, assistant research scientist and director of the Post-Translational Modification Program at the UGA Cancer Center.

The only available blood test for ovarian cancer searches for elevated levels of a protein called CA-125, but this test, as well as protein-based diagnostics for other cancers, are notoriously unreliable because proteins tend to undergo significant changes as the cancer develops and grows. Glycans, on the other hand, remain relatively stable.

"What we're finding is that glycan changes happen early as the cells transition and become cancerous, and this is something that the cell holds onto," Abbott said.

Congratulations to Abbott and Pierce, and hopes for continung progress in the important work going on their labs.