{"id":10732,"date":"2017-03-06T03:26:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T03:26:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/?p=10732&post_type=story"},"modified":"2023-12-01T15:30:58","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T15:30:58","slug":"tackling-cancer","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/tackling-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Tackling Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spring 2017 | By Christopher Bobo<\/em><\/p>\n

[lead]Annette Khaled, head of UCF\u2019s College of Medicine<\/a> Cancer Research Division, is a member of one of four teams whose research is funded from proceeds of the AutoNation Cure Bowl. Thanks to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and AutoNation, they will continue to receive funding every year as long as they continue to produce results.[\/lead]<\/p>\n

This December, the Knights may have fallen to the Arkansas State Red Wolves at the Cure Bowl, but it was still a win for UCF. Khaled\u2019s team received $250,000, for a total of approximately $645,000 since 2015, toward their breast cancer research, allowing them to advance to the next stage of development.<\/p>\n

Their first generation of treatment relies on a small peptide encapsulated in a nanoparticle. This particle is capable of going after the primary tumor, but is helpless to deal with any cancer that\u2019s spread elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nanoparticles that we use have to be recharacterized, restructured, retargeted to reach these tissues,\u201d Khaled says. \u201cBut a small molecule doesn\u2019t. A small molecule will actually go everywhere in the body. So what we want to do with the funding \u2026 is make that next generation of therapeutics that will hopefully have the versatility.\u201d<\/p>\n

A key component in their new plan is the research being conducted by scientist Alicja Copik.<\/p>\n

Copik\u2019s work focuses on white blood cells called natural killer cells. She likens them to the body\u2019s front-line defense. These warriors stop cancers and other viruses before they make us sick, unlike T-cells, which attack a specific target.<\/p>\n

Since the discovery of NK cells, they\u2019ve been difficult to cultivate in a lab. However, research over the past decade has made NK cells easier to work with, providing a better understanding of their role.<\/p>\n

NK cells \u201corchestrate the [other cells], meaning they kind of give the directions to other, more specialized troops to tell them, \u2018I think something bad is happening here, we need a more direct immune system response,\u2019\u200a\u201d Copik says.<\/p>\n

Using nanoparticles to signal reproduction, Copik\u2019s research has been able to increase the number of NK cells in a person\u2019s body ten-thousandfold, significantly boosting the body\u2019s natural defense system response from a few soldiers to a battalion.<\/p>\n

Though barriers still exist, there\u2019s a chance for this cancer treatment to one day replace current methods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many treatments out there that will regress the tumor size,\u201d Khaled says. \u201cWe have many chemotherapeutics that will eliminate the tumor, but there\u2019s nothing really out there to keep the tumor from coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd usually when the tumor comes back,\u201d Copik adds, \u201cit is already resistant to everything that you had, meaning you have nothing else to give to the patients to treat them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combined treatments could be the key one-two punch to attack the initial tumor and any cancer that\u2019s spread to other parts of the body. Copik\u2019s work on NK cells is currently planned for clinical trials by the end of 2017 for patients with leukemia.<\/p>\n

Other research on NK cells has shown them to be a key part in the body\u2019s fight against HIV, Ebola and influenza. This could suggest other applications for the treatment as an injection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10883,"template":"","categories":[977],"tags":[1666,1024,654,30],"class_list":["post-10732","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-annette-khaled","tag-cancer","tag-college-of-medicine","tag-research","issues-spring-2017"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Autonation Cure Bowl Funds Cancer Research at UCF<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cancer researchers at UCF are working on ways to not only eliminate and make tumors smaller, but to stop them from coming back at all.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/tackling-cancer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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