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Features: April 22, 2002
Keeping Tumors From Becoming Killer Cancer
 A
cancerous tumor is one that has the deadly ability to spread
uncontrollably to other parts of the body. If a tumor could
be confined to its original location, it could simply be
removed and cancer virtually would be nonexistent, says
George Plopper, assistant professor of biology.
A small tumor can shed a million cells a
day into the blood stream. Most of the cells die, but some
of them survive and migrate to other parts of the body.
Plopper is researching how these tumor cells reach their
new destinations. His work could lead to new drug inhibitors
or biomaterials that target the chemical composition of
abnormal cells.
If a tumor could be confined to its
original location, it could simply be removed and cancer
virtually would be nonexistent.
—George Plopper—
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The extracellular matrix (ECM)-proteins
and other materials that surround tissue cells-provides
a barrier to limit the migration of most normal cells away
from their sites of origin. A distinguishing characteristic
of cancer cells is their disregard for these tissue barriers.
Abnormal cells that pass these barriers
end up in the blood stream. They reach their final destination
at end of a capillary, the one-cell thick blood vessels
imbedded in tissue that connect arteries and veins. At this
stage, a tumor cell attaches itself to the endothelial cells.
Plopper's goal is to find out how tumor
cells communicate with these endothelial cells. One possibility
is that a protein secreted from a rogue cell may cut a path
for that cell to enter its destination. The idea, then,
would be to inhibit such proteins in specific cells.
Plopper is collaborating with Institute
Professor of Science Ivar Giaever '64; Charles Keese '71,
senior research scientist in biology; and George Edick,
director of the undergraduate laboratory in biology.
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