Catching the problem early: The early stages of lung cancer initiation & melanoma drug resistance

TheoryLab

Two American Cancer Society grantees—one with a recent publication on the early mechanisms of lung cancer initiation, the other with a new study out on the development of melanoma resistance during the earliest phases of treatment—joined the podcast for a conversation about catching the problem early. This conversation is geared for a scientific audience, until the last few minutes. Sabrina Spencer, PhD, is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at University of Colorado, Boulder. She recently published a study in Nature Communications on “Melanoma subpopulations that rapidly escape MAPK pathway inhibition incur DNA damage and rely on stress signaling:” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21549-x?elqTrackId=2842c2f36cc243139afc4151f4f48ee6. Xaralabos (Bob) Varelas, PhD, is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine. He recently published work in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America titled, “Aberrant epithelial polarity cues drive the development of precancerous airway lesions:” https://www.pnas.org/content/118/18/e2019282118. 1:08 – Dr. Varelas on his recent study, which offered insights into mechanisms that drive the onset of lung squamous cell carcinomas 4:20 – Dr. Spencer asks clarifying questions about how they disrupted the polarity… 5:08 – …and whether the Crumbs3 mutation occurs in patients or was a way to initiate the system 7:56 – A provocative question from Dr. Spencer: “would that mean that a precancerous lesion would be a candidate for treatment with some of these clinically approved drugs?” 9:25 – “Can you connect increased ERBB signaling to actual increased cell cycling?” 10:48 – Dr. Spencer talks about her interest in the origin of drug resistance in cancer and her recent paper, which focused on melanoma 20:15 – Dr. Varelas asks how broadly applicable these findings are to other cancers 22:10 – “Why do you think some of the cells escape? Is there an underlying difference in the cells to begin with? Or are some cells randomly taking on some kind of adaptive mechanism?” 28:11 – The impact of American Cancer Society funding on their research