Targeting Cholesterol Metabolism for Prevention of Small Cell Lung Cancer
Abstract
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) remains the deadliest type of lung cancer, causing deaths of over 200,000 patient worldwide and more than 30,000 patients in the United States each year. The main cause of SCLC is cigarette smoke, and a major factor contributing to the high mortality of the cancer is the nearly invariable resistance to current cytotoxic therapies that have remained largely the same for the past 30 years. The smoking rates of military personnel and Veterans remain significantly higher than that of civilians and pose a greater risk of lung cancer, causing not only serious health issues but also significant costs to the US military and Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare system. Although the Department of Defense has implemented numerous initiatives and policies to reduce tobacco usage in the military, the incidence of smoking-related lung cancers will remain high for decades to come because formers smokers as well as current smokers develop lung cancers after a long latency. Chemoprevention has been considered a major alternative to existing therapeutics mainly based on long tumor latency and known high-risk population (e.g., smokers). However, the paucity of preventive targets stems from the poor understanding of the SCLC progression. The objectives of the proposed research are to characterize molecular changes, including cholesterol metabolism, specific to malignant progression of SCLC and assess them as target for chemoprevention using highly innovative methods developed in the lab. The short-term impact of this research is to provide a conceptual basis for novel preventive strategies involving nutrition or metabolic drugs. The long-term impact of the proposed research is to serve a proof-of-concept approach for discovery of potential biomarkers that, after further validation, will be invaluable for early diagnosis for better outcome of current treatments as well as chemoprevention of the disease.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 04, 2016
- Source ID
- W81XWH1510405
Entities
People
- Kwon-Sik Park
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of Virginia