Novel RNA-Based Therapies for Lung Cancer
Abstract
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Patients diagnosed with advanced lung cancer have only a 16% chance to live for 5 years, and outcomes for those treated with current standard treatments have not dramatically changed. Recent development of “targeted therapies” has changed the way of treatment in a subset of patients. However, such therapies are not effective for all patients, and the tumor eventually comes back, even in patients who show good initial response. Therefore, development of novel therapies for lung cancer is imperative. It has been shown that a protein called CCAAT/Enhancer Binding Protein alpha (C/EBPalpha) plays an important role in maturating lung (pulmonary) cells. Mice that have no C/EBPalpha have much less mature pulmonary cells, eventually leading to lung cancer. Moreover, approximately half of tumor specimens from patients with non-small cell lung cancer have little or no expression of C/EBPalpha. Therefore, we hypothesize that an increase in C/EBPa may induce cell maturation of immature cancer cells, leading to elimination of lung tumors. In this proposal, we will use ribonucleic acid (nucleic acids called small activating RNA [saRNA]) to increase C/EBPalpha in cancer cells. Our aims are to (1) investigate what types of lung cancer saRNA works for and how and (2) assess the effectiveness of saRNA in mouse lung cancer models. We believe that the experiments proposed here will lead to development of a novel therapy and significantly impact the care of patients who have lung cancer with unfavorable prognoses in the near future.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Oct 29, 2018
- Source ID
- W81XWH1810340
Entities
People
- Susumu S Kobayashi
Organizations
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
- United States Army