Joseph L. Roti Roti, Ph.D., professor of radiology, of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of cell biology and physiology, will serve as principal investigator for the grant. Roti Roti and other investigators from the Section of Cancer Biology at the medical school's Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology will study if the responses cells make when they are stressed can be used to determine whether radiation therapy is working for cancer patients.
Doctors use radiation treatment, or irradiation, to direct damaging energy at tumor cells.
Doctors know that tumor cells sometimes thwart cancer therapy by activating built-in cell stress responses. These responses help cells bounce back from environmental assaults, such as above-normal temperatures. The investigators will study how certain stress responses hurt or help cancer therapy success. In doing so, they will analyze the effects of ionizing radiation, excess heat and oxidative conditions on cells. In one of four projects, researchers led by Andrei Laszlo, Ph.D., associate professor of radiology, and Douglas R. Spitz, Ph.D., assistant professor of radiology, will determine if cultured tumor cells that have adapted to above-normal temperatures are more resistant to irradiation in the presence of heat.