Local Montana researchers aid in global cancer research

A researcher in Bozeman is helping untangle the way cancer attacks the human body, in an attempt to find ways to keep cancer from spreading once it forms in a person.

By EVE BYRON – IR Staff Writer

Valerie Copie, an assistant professor of biochemistry at Montana State University, said the role of local researchers is but a small one in the overall war being waged against cancer.

But she hopes that the work her team of biologists and chemists is doing will eventually provide some of the knowledge needed to stop cancer in its tracks.

"Our work is very biochemical," Copie told members of the American Cancer Society’s Lewis and Clark Advisory Board on Wednesday. "What we are doing is a tiny piece of the puzzle … but we’re trying to prevent a tumor from going anywhere and kill it at its primary site."

Their research is focusing on a protein that is involved in promoting the spread of cancer cells throughout the body. The protein is called "67kDa laminin-binding protein," which is abbreviated as 67kDa LBP.

Certain types of cancer cells, such as the ones found in breast, lung and colon cancers n which have a tendency to metastasize, or move into the bloodstream and other organs n possess large amounts of this protein on their cell surface.

It’s believed 67kDa LBP interacts with another protein present in host cells, called laminin. When the two proteins mix, a cascade of cellular changes takes place, which allow for the migration of the tumor cells.

Copie and the other Bozeman-based researchers used a $1 million nuclear magnetic resonance machine n a kind of large magnet n to try to understand how the mixture of the two proteins allow the cancer cells to invade the host tissues.

"Normally, cells have to grow, then divide and migrate," Copie said. "Cancer is a complicated process, but the cell adhesion and migration becomes abnormal. The cells grow more and more and take over the body. So we tried to target the cell adhesion process."

Their research was funded with a $380,000 American Cancer Society grant.

Copie said they made some interesting discoveries in their work, but a lot more needs to be done before they reach their long-term goal of helping design anti-cancer drugs that could block the binding of the 67kDa protein to the laminin protein and keep cancer from migrating.

"That’s the goal, and obviously it will take a lot more effort," she said. "But this is exciting work. I tell my students that one of the great things about being a professor is that every day I am learning something. Part of the excitement is you learn a lot more about chemistry and nature, while continuing to increase the knowledge of basic chemistry and cancer."

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