The University's Department of Pathology has received a $1.5 million grant from the National Cancer Institute.
Along with several other medical institutions, the Department of Pathology was awarded the grant in order to improve technology for diagnosing cancer.
"The grant will be used in our effort to identify biomarkers specifically for cancer," Dr. Janet Cross, study coordinator for the Department of Pathology, said.
A biomarker is physical trait capable of identifying the progress of a disease. Cross explained that the Department of Pathology is attempting to determine whether or not there are proteins unique to the urine samples of cancer patients.
According to Dr. Dennis Templeton, chair of the Department of Pathology, screening urine samples took a lot of time and effort in the past. The Department of Pathology has now developed new computer technology that speeds up the process.
Previously, it took a student working in the Department of Pathology three months to screen one sample of urine before the new technology was developed, Templeton said. However, with the use of the new method, the student was able to screen 40 samples in four months.
By using the faster technology, researchers will be able to collect larger amounts of data in order to discover if a cancer protein does exist.
"The goal would be to identify a protein in samples from cancer patients that is not present in non-cancer samples," Dr. Dennis Templeton, chair of the Department of Pathology, said.
The grant money will be used to fund the testing of University patients in hopes of finding a cancer protein in urine samples.
If a specific protein is identified, it would greatly change the process of diagnosing cancer.
"We want a patient to walk in, give a sample and we can simply screen the sample to see if that patient has cancer," Templeton said. "It would greatly enhance the surveillance for early signs of cancer".
Research to discover the biomarkers for cancer has begun immediately with the aid of the NCI's grant.
"We are excited about the potential this could have for the future of cancer research," Cross said.
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