Breakthrough in Cancer Detection & Therapy

Having found a cause of some cancers, can the promise of better treatments or a cure be far off? That is the hope of clinicians and researchers at Nemours, who have discovered one of the causes of solid mass tumors.

While studying the mechanisms involved in the conversion of normal cells to cancer cells, Ayyappan K. Rajasekaran, PhD, who directs the Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research, made a seminal discovery in cancer research. He and his team found an early event in solid tumors: a malfunction of the ion pump that normally pumps sodium out of cells. This breakdown results in an increase in sodium inside the cell, which is believed to then set off a cascade of events that lead to the development of cancer.

The implications are vast. In the world of cancer research and in the words of Vicky Funanage, PhD, Nemours Director of Biomedical Research, “What Dr. Rajasekaran and his team have discovered will unleash numerous opportunities for exploration as well as improvements in drug therapies and early cancer detection.

Specifically, Dr. Rajasekaran’s discovery could mean better cancer detection and treatment in that it provides new potential targets for therapy; for example, if Nemours discovers drugs that can restore function of the pump and/or prevent the influx of sodium, can cancer be prevented from occurring in the first place? Equally as exciting, since increased sodium influx into cells seems to be an early occurrence in the path to malignancy for several different types of solid tumors, can sodium imaging of tissues be utilized as a new tool for early detection of cancer and monitoring of the effectiveness of novel chemotherapeutic agents?

Nemours will address these possibilities not only within the Center for Childhood Cancer Research, but also as part of the Delaware Center for Translational Cancer Research, a statewide consortium of four institutions, which includes the University of Delaware, Helen F. Graham Cancer Center, Delaware Biotechnology Institute, and Nemours, with the Nemours Center for Childhood Cancer Research serving as the pediatric arm of this statewide cancer network.

Providing hope and cutting-edge cures for cancer patients is the goal of the Nemours Childhood Cancer Research Center.