A brief chat at a Faculty Senate meeting put two University of Delaware researchers onto an idea that could be of great value to cancer researchers.
The collaboration of Prof. Prasad Dhurjati, a chemical engineer who has done extensive computer modeling of biological and engineering systems, and Prof. Deni Galileo, a neurobiologist whose expertise is in cell motion and behavior in the brain, has produced a new and freely available computer program that predicts cancer cell motion and spread with high accuracy. An article on their model was recently published in BMC Systems Biology.
Galileo has been studying the movement and spread of glioblastoma tumors - an aggressive and devastating form of brain cancer that has claimed thousands of lives, including those of Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy and two Phillies greats - pitcher Tug McGraw and catcher Darren Daulton, to name just a few. U.S. Sen. John McCain was diagnosed with this kind of cancer in 2017.
A significant challenge for physicians and their patients is that this cancer spreads rapidly, reducing the effectiveness of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
"You need at least 50,000 cells in one spot to pick it up in an MRI, so surgeons can't see where small numbers of cells have invaded the brain beyond the main tumor," Galileo said. "If you could stop the cells from moving beyond that initial tumor, the surgeon could go in a second time and take the second tumor out. As it is now, they can keep spreading in every direction and it's a pretty hard problem to solve."
Galileo and his research team have been studying what triggers the rapid spread of these cells - aiming to disrupt their aggressive advance - and have demonstrated the significant role of a cell membrane protein called L1CAM (L1 cell adhesion molecule). Ordinarily, this molecule contributes to development of the nervous system, Galileo said. But it acts differently in glioblastoma and other cancer cells, accelerating their growth and spread.
Dhurjati and Galileo met at a meeting of the Faculty Senate, which both have served as president. Dhurjati looked at Galileo's work and realized it was a strong candidate for the kind of mathematical modeling he does with biological systems. He has worked with specialists in osteoporosis and the human gut microbiome - that stew of microbes that live in the bellies of humans and animals - and has helped researchers simulate biological behavior to see predicted responses to various stimuli.
