Fall 2002 -- Vol. 20, No. 1

Gay and Mastro are Founding Members of New NFCR Center
for Metastatic Cancer Research

Carol V. Gay	Andrea M. Mastro

Two professors from Penn State's Eberly College of Science Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology are founding members of the new Center for Metastatic Cancer Research. The new center, funded in part by the National Foundation for Cancer Research, will be based at Penn State's Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Carol V. Gay, professor of cell biology, and Andrea M. Mastro, professor of microbiology and cell biology, will join two other Penn State colleagues – Danny R. Welch, associate professor of pathology, who will serve as the new center's director, and Henry J. Donahue, professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation. Carrie W. Rinker-Schaeffer, a researcher at the University of Chicago, will round out the center's founding team. The combined disciplines and talents of the quintet are expected to provide the expertise to fully study the process of metastasis as it is related to breast cancer, prostate cancer, and bone biology.

The basic goal of the partnership is to find out what causes cancer to metastasize – or spread – and how the spread of cancer to the bones of individuals can be prevented. The partnership between Penn State, the University of Chicago, and the National Foundation for Cancer Research has the dual goals of identifying the fundamental molecular changes in cancer cells that cause them to metastasize and translating those basic findings into strategies for preventing metastasis and for better treating patients who have metastatic cancer.

“Dr. Welch is one of the world's leading scientists in metastatic cancer research,” said Sujuan Ba, science director for the NFCR. “Through this center at Penn State, he will be linked with seven other centers around the world from Berlin to Beijing to Yale University that are taking a shared approach to curing cancer.”

For Gay and Mastro, the formation of the center serves as a formal continuation of years of collaboration with Welch.

“Andrea Mastro introduced me to Danny Welch several years ago and we have been collaborating ever since,” Gay said. “Joining this project has allowed me to use my knowledge of bone-cell function and the anatomy of the skeleton in new ways. It is very exciting to be part of such an interactive team and to have the opportunity to solve such challenging problems.”

Mastro echoed those sentiments. “In 1998, I spent part of a sabbatical in Dr. Gay's lab and the other part with Dr. Welch. This collaboration led to interactions with other investigators, including Henry Donahue. We spent about two years meeting and planning,” Mastro said. “The establishment of this center under Dr. Welch's leadership means that our work as collaborators is now formalized and its continuation has more support. It is a very prestigious award and it means a great deal to me to be included.”

Research at the center will focus initially on metastasis to the bone. Two of the most common cancers – breast and prostate – exhibit a propensity to metastasize to bone, yet research on the process has been limited. The dearth of research studies is reflected in the lack of treatments and prevention strategies specifically addressing this clinical problem. Therefore, initial research priorities will be: to develop and characterize models of breast and prostate metastasis to bone; to identify and evaluate the genes that regulate metastasis to bone; and to determine exactly how tumor cells communicate with bone cells.

“The project I am directing involves isolating the cells that line blood vessels in bone,” Gay said. “We want to find out why breast-cancer cells are attracted to bone so frequently once the cancer begins to spread. Our hypothesis is that there is a unique array of adhesive proteins on these vascular surfaces. So, when a breast-cancer cell floats along in the blood stream it may adhere to blood-vessel walls in the bone. The cancer cells may then be stimulated to migrate out of the blood vessel and into the bone. Assisting this process is the fact that blood flow is sluggish in regions of bone where cancers are typically found.”

Mastro's research focuses on another aspect of breast cancer. “My laboratory is investigating the relationship between breast-cancer cells and osteoblasts, the cells that normally build bone. We believe that the breast-cancer cells may prevent the osteoblasts from functioning properly; they may undergo programmed cell death, or apoptosis, or they may not be able to differentiate.”

Welch said that meshing these researchers with their particular specialties holds promise for progress toward a cure. “Metastasis is the ultimate step in a tumor cell’s progression and it is a highly complex process,” Welch said. “What makes this research group so special is how we are bringing together people from the cancer fields and bone fields. This alliance of researchers with different, but complementary, expertise could help us make significant inroads in ultimately preventing the spread of cancer.”

Andy Elder

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