Read time: 2 minutes
Keywords: seed grants, metastatic breast cancer
The Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) Seed Grant program awarded a promising study of breast cancer metastasis led by Ashok Samuel, a CCIL member and a faculty member in the Department of Bioengineering at Illinois. CCIL Seed grants provide funding that enables faculty teams to develop noble cancer research ideas, collect preliminary data and attract external funding.
Samuel’s project “Imaging Intratumoral Heterogeneity in Breast Cancer Cells Across Epithelial to Mesenchymal Phenotypes by Targeting Submicron Organelle Specific Small-Molecule Chemical Landscape” focuses on addressing metastasis, the advanced stage of cancer where the cancer cells start spreading to other parts of the body, making it very difficult to treat.
Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) member Ashok Samuel
“During metastasis a series of sequential events enables tumor cells to acquire migratory abilities, ultimately making them capable of infiltrating adjacent tissue and eventually spreading to different parts of the body. Effective medical therapy becomes exceedingly challenging at this advanced stage of cancer, even with treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation,” said Samuel.
Collaborating with Samuel on this project are CCIL members Susan Leggett, an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering, and Jonathan Sweedler, the James R. Eiszner Family Endowed Chair in Chemistry. The team aims to understand biochemical changes in small molecules as stable cells develop migratory traits.
“These small molecules can be thought of as a type of “currency” for proteins within cells, facilitating the flow of information that drives cellular behavior. By disrupting or halting this molecular exchange, we may gain insights into how cancer progresses toward metastasis”, Samuel elaborated. To achieve this goal, the team has developed strategies to decode chemical structures from optical frequency responses, advancing beyond traditional approaches that rely solely on image contrast at specific characteristic frequencies.
Currently in its early stages, this project holds strong potential to advance cancer research by addressing critical questions about underlying cancer mechanisms, i.e., how and why cell migration occurs, with future implications for cancer treatment. Although the focus of this research is on breast cancer, the findings of this research are broadly applicable for different types of cancers. “The techniques have general applicability, and there is room for detailed future studies to understand how the findings might vary across different cancer types”, said Samuel.
Editor’s notes:
Ashok Samuel is a faculty member in the Department of Bioengineering and a member of the Cancer Center at Illinois. He can be reached at azsamuel@illinois.edu.
This story was written by Javeria Malik, CCIL Communications intern.