GEORGIA SOUTHERN RESEARCHERS IDENTIFY PROMISING MOLECULES TO TARGET CANCER METASTASIS

The American Cancer Society reports that an estimated 63,000 Georgians were diagnosed with cancer for the first time last year.

Those numbers inspired Georgia Southern University researchers to make a breakthrough oncology discovery. Mark dela Cerna, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry, and his students developed a method to inhibit cancer-causing proteins. This stops the spread of cancer cells from where they first formed to another part of the body.

“We’re trying to find medications that work on metastasis,” said dela Cerna. “We’re looking for molecules that could be developed as drugs to target cancer metastasis.”

Metastasis can oftentimes be caused by a cell protein called phosphatase of regenerating liver three, or PRL-3.

Thanks to collaborations with Jessica Blackburn, Ph.D., at the University of Kentucky, Donghan Lee, Ph.D., at the Korea Basic Science Institute, Deji Agbowuro at South University – Savannah, and Brandon Quillian, Ph.D., assistant professor of organic chemistry at Georgia Southern, the first molecule they found that “turns off” the PRL-3 protein was discovered in 2022. Since then, dela Cerna traveled to South Korea to use one of the world’s strongest NMR spectrometers — a powerful magnet that can be used to study interactions of proteins like PRL-3.

Dela Cerna’s research offers hope for therapies that could significantly reduce cancer-related deaths caused by metastasis.