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Grant for imaging machine holds promise for cancer research

By Brian Fitzgerald

Lynn Segall is the president of an organization she hopes will go out of business.

Segall heads Aid for Cancer Research, a nonprofit organization that recently gave a $10,300 grant to the BU School of Medicine. The Laboratory of Surgical Biology used the funds to purchase an imaging system that will help researchers in their fight for a cure for colon and rectal cancer.

"It would be great if someday there was no need for our group," says Segall, whose mother-in-law died of pancreatic and stomach cancer. "Remarkable progress has been made over the years, but unfortunately not all of the answers have been found."

	Olga Bajenova, a research associate professor in the BU School of Medicine's surgical biology laboratory, looks at cell samples on the screen of the lab's new Bio Rad Gel Documentation System. Photo by Vernon Doucette

The number of new cancer cases in the U.S. declined on average 0.8 percent per year between 1990 and 1997. The overall incidence of colorectal cancer has been decreasing steadily at an average rate of 1.6 percent a year since 1985, thanks to early detection from doctor's office screenings (digital rectal exams) and colonoscopy, a procedure that can include taking tissue samples for laboratory analysis.

The new imaging system at the Laboratory of Surgical Biology, known as the Bio Rad Gel Documentation System, photographs these tissue samples and preserves the images on computer disks, eliminating the need to repeat film exposures or to rerun experiments.

"It's a gel documentation system that speeds up our ability to assess mutations in DNA from cancer cell samples, and provides a permanent record of the experiment," says Peter Thomas, the lab's director. "Before we had this new system, the images were much more difficult to document."

Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the United States. "But colon cancer is very amenable to surgery, if it's caught in its early stage," says Thomas. "If the primary tumor is dissected from the colon, there's a high rate of survival - about 90 percent. However, if the tumor has invaded the wall of the colon and lymph nodes, then the chances of survival are greatly reduced."

Thomas says that about half of the patients operated on for primary tumors in the colon experience a recurrence of the cancer, mostly in the liver. "Once you have a secondary tumor in the liver, it's basically untreatable," he says. "Chemotherapy won't kill the tumor, and radiation therapy is ineffective. Eventually the patient dies of liver failure."

However, Thomas and Olga Bajenova, a research associate professor, are researching the way these tumor cells migrate to the liver and multiply. "The goal of our research is to uncover the signaling mechanism of colorectal cancer metastasis to the liver," says Bajenova. "This could lead to determining ways to stop the cells from planting and growing."

Bajenova explains that the Bio Rad Gel Documentation System saves time and gleans more information out of each photo image. "If you expose DNA to ultraviolet light too long, the DNA starts to degrade," she says. "With this technology, we can expose the DNA to UV, take the picture, and then have an infinite amount of time to play around with the image and get the best contrast."

Aid for Cancer Research, a group of 28 women from the greater Boston area, channels requests for funds through a volunteer medical advisory board of eminent Boston physicians, who evaluate the requests and make recommendations for the most effective use and application of the organization's resources. Its unique contribution is the ability to respond quickly to requests for equipment, a laboratory, or a fellowship at a critical time during a research project.

On December 4, researchers at the Laboratory of Surgical Biology demonstrated how the system works to several members of the fundraising organization. "We started our Aid for Cancer Research 53 years ago, and I've been a member for 50 years," says June Weinberg, whose Newton home serves as the organization's headquarters. "We're not as well-known as the American Cancer Society, but we've still raised millions of dollars for cancer research over the years."

Despite the leveling off of colorectal cancer deaths in the U.S. population in the past decade, the fact remains that this year alone more than 131,000 Americans will be diagnosed with cancers of the colon and rectum. "The results of our study have the potential of wide clinical application in colorectal, breast, and other metastatic cancers," says Bajenova.

8 December 2000
Boston University
Office of University Relations