In the UK almost 40,000 new cases of lung cancer are diagnosed annually and there are 34,500 deaths. Survival rates for this devastating disease have changed little in the last 30 years. Recent advances in our understanding of protein kinase signal transduction have led to the development of numerous drugs that inhibit protein and lipid kinases (so-called “molecular targeted agents”). This includes the recent licencing of an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor, erlotinib, for the treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We have been examining protein kinase signalling in early stage lung cancer, particularly of the EGFR-Akt-GSK3 signalling pathway. We have found that GSK3 is hyper-activated in a significant fraction of non-small cell lung tumours and in this project we plan to examine the underlying molecular mechanisms involved in this dysregulation of GSK3, as well as explore the potential of this pathway to serve as a target for chemotherapy. To do this you will use a combination of cell and molecular biological techniques to study GSK3 in tumour cell lines and in biopsy material obtained from people undergoing thoracic surgery or diagnostic bronchoscopy as part of their treatment regimens.
Webpage: http://www.bris.ac.uk/biochemistry/research/jt.html
UBSMS BIOC CSCB
References:
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