When the right pieces come together you can see a more complete picture. And in the case of cancer research, it’s a picture which provides hope in the fight against the many diseases that are cancer.
Dr. Lisa Porter is one of hundreds of Canadian Cancer Society-funded researchers who are trying to find those puzzle pieces and putting them together to better understand how cancer develops. Dr. Porter has identified a protein that may trigger cells to multiply too rapidly and which could eventually lead to breast and other cancers.
The University of Windsor researcher first isolated the Spy 1, or Speedy, protein early in her career as a cancer researcher. She then discovered that the Speedy protein plays a key role in controlling normal cell growth but may also play a role in speeding it up.
Dr. Porter found that increasing the levels of the Speedy protein in breast cells from mice caused the cells to grow abnormally and would alter the function of the surrounding tissue, and ultimately develop into cancer. Dr. Porter’s research team is now studying the protein’s behaviour in human cells. While the Speedy protein is found in all cells in the body it is found in very high levels in aggressive forms of breast cancer and brain cancer.
“We thought it was important to look at how this protein is behaving in breast cancer,” she says. “Our research has found that the protein is regulated by hormones and we know that hormones can jump-start many cancers.” For example, research has shown that women who have taken some types of hormone replacement therapy for more than five years are at higher risk for breast cancer.
In their lab, Dr. Porter’s team is comparing normal cells with breast cancer cells to study how the Speedy protein is involved in the critical stages of cell growth and division as well as preventing growth and triggering the cell to die.
Dr. Porter explains that through this research the goal is to improve early detection and treatment of breast cancer and possibly other cancers.
Dr. Porter’s research is funded by a $750,000 grant from the Canadian Breast Cancer Research Alliance, of which the Canadian Cancer Society is a founding member and invests $2.5 million annually.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among Canadian women (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer). In 2009 an estimated 22,700 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 5,400 will die of it.