Winter/Spring 2009

COVER STORY Understanding the Origins of Cancer Hormone Links to Cancer Role of Epigenetics How Ovarian Cancer Develops DNA Repair Mechanisms Sphingolipids in Cancer Development Investigating Chromosome Breaks Collaborating with the Georgia Cancer Coalition

CANCER IS the most-feared of human diseases, often striking without warning and seemingly without identifiable cause. Decades into the nation's war on cancer, we have learned that the disease is far more complex than we originally believed.

photo by Gary Meek Kirill Lobachev, associate professor in the School of Biology, looks at a plate displaying mutant yeast cells that are defective in making fragile chromosomes, which are hot spots for rearrangements that can lead to cancer. (300-dpi JPEG)

At the Georgia Institute of Technology, researchers are pursuing many different directions in their quest to understand how cancer arises. They are adding their findings to a deepening understanding of the complex molecular pathways that turn a normal cell into a malignant one. Ultimately, that knowledge may lead to new strategies for preventing cancer, new diagnostic techniques for finding it early – and to drugs and other agents that may provide cures.

This article describes Georgia Tech research into the origins of cancer including:

• How hormones fuel certain cancers;
• The potential role of non-mutational changes, called epigenetics;
• An integrated approach to studying ovarian cancer;
• Mechanisms for repairing double-strand DNA breaks;
• Predicting where DNA will break, and how often it will break; and
• Understanding the role of cell-signaling molecules such as sphingolipids.

This is the first in a series of three reports that will focus on cancer research at Georgia Tech. The other two will highlight efforts to develop new diagnostics and new treatments.