With the help of ongoing support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), two professors from the CHNS Department of Medical Technology, along with their undergraduate assistants, are continuing in-depth cancer research.

Profs. Mary Ann McLane and Mary Beth Miele each received a $150,000 grant from the NIH, the steward of medical and behavioral research for the nation.

For McLane, the three-year grant is providing funds to enable her and her undergraduate research students the opportunity to further understand the effect snake venom protein has when used to prevent metastasis, the spreading of cancer.

The presence of metastasis is the worst diagnosis a cancer patient can receive, McLane says. Therefore, the goal of her research is to understand what it is about snake venom protein that allows it, when injected into a cancer cell, to inhibit the tumor's ability to spread.

Under McLane's guidance, undergraduate researchers now are using molecular biology to mutate the structure of snake venom protein and, in turn, are finding out which parts of the proteins are most crucial to stopping metastasis.

"Everyone in the lab has a part of a story he or she is trying to tell. Our students are building team-oriented methods to further tell this story," McLane says.

Miele, on the other hand, is looking more at the internal structure of a cancer cell in her work to prevent the spread of cancer. Her two-year grant has been allowing her and her students to work toward identifying the gene or genes within a cell that prevent metastasis of malignant melanoma, which is the most deadly of skin cancers.

"Receiving this NIH grant has allowed me to pursue multiple lines of research focused on genes implicated in melanoma," Miele says. "More undergraduate research opportunities have been made available for medical technology and biological science students to work in my laboratory. The training of young scientists is an important goal of mine, and this grant has made it possible to include more undergraduates in research."

--Elissa Serrao, AS 2003