V Foundation champions quest against leukemia
Call them a scientific power couple.
WenYong Chen, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Division of Biology, and Ravi Bhatia, M.D., director of the Department of Stem Cell & Leukemia Research, have paired up to turn lab discoveries into new treatments for blood cancer. Their potential has not gone unnoticed: The V Foundation has awarded the pair a three-year, $600,000 grant to improve therapy for those with chronic myelogenous leukemia.
The grant supports translational research — the process of applying scientific knowledge to create new therapies. Chen is the basic scientist of the two, studying fundamental biological processes deep within the cell. Bhatia, meanwhile, deeply understands how to target those processes, and move strategies toward clinical trials that potentially benefit patients who need better treatments.
The grant was one of six awarded to research teams like Chen and Bhatia at top institutions nationwide.
“We are certain that V funding has once again been awarded to the most elite level of research. The six selected projects represent the best of the 45 proposals evaluated by The V Foundation in 2007,” said V Foundation Chief Executive Officer Nick Valvano, brother of the late legendary North Carolina State basketball coach and ESPN commentator Jim Valvano.
Jim Valvano founded The V Foundation in 1993 shortly before dying of cancer. The foundation’s goal is to find a cure for the disease. Since its creation, The V Foundation has raised more than $60 million and awarded cancer research grants in 37 states and the District of Columbia.
Chen and Bhatia’s proposal aims to devise better therapies for chronic myelogenous leukemia, or CML. In 2001, CML received a major blow when the drug Gleevec was developed — a significant cancer success story. Gleevec blocks the activity of the oncogene that causes CML. Over time, however, some patients become resistant to it and progress to more advanced forms of the disease.
Chen and Bhatia believe that high levels of a specific protein that cells produce to counteract environmental stress may be associated with resistance to Gleevec.
photo: MARKIE RAMIREZWenYong Chen, left, and Ravi Bhatia
“We have found that this stress-related protein is overexpressed by some CML cells,” said Chen. “If we find that it is a critical factor for resistance during Gleevec treatment, we could possibly devise strategies to block it.”
For his part, Bhatia will evaluate the effect of drugs that inhibit the activity of that stress protein on CML stem cells derived from patients. “If we could show that one of those inhibitors plus Gleevec was more active in inhibiting CML progenitors than Gleevec alone, it would provide support for using that drug in a clinical trial,” he said.
More information about Jim Valvano and The V Foundation is available at www.jimmyv.org.