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Our Funds at Work
Youwen Zhou, MD University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. Although most patients with melanoma can be cured after surgical removal of the cancer, in about one third of the patients, the melanoma later on recurs and spreads (metastasizes) into the internal organs. Most, but not all, melanoma patients die shortly after metastasis. There is no marker that can accurately forecast clinical outcomes. At present, the molecular mechanism of melanoma metastasis has not been clearly understood, hindering therapeutic development.
Recent research in our lab has discovered that alpha-1 antichymotrypsin (ACT), a protein not produced by normal skin cells, was made in abnormally high amounts by melanoma cells.
It was also found in a small-scale pilot study that high ACT levels were associated with low patient survival, raising the possibility that ACT levels in tumor biopsies can be used to predict future outcomes of melanoma patients.
The main goal of this research project is to test this possibility by assessing the ACT levels in tumor biopsies in a large number of melanoma patients and correlating the results with patients’ survival. In addition, we will study the effects of increased ACT protein on cancerous behaviors of the melanoma cells, such as growth rate, survival, migration, and matrix invasion.
This study will help clarify the usefulness of ACT as a predictive marker of mortality for melanoma patients, and as a molecular target for development of novel melanoma therapies.
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