Hollern isn’t the only one on campus working in the field of cancer research. In recent years, faculty and students have published many studies that have described the cancer research they have conducted.

Sandra Haslam, professor of physiology and director of MSU’s Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Center, who has conducted such studies, said scientists increasingly are becoming aware of the importance of publishing their cancer research.

“We’ve become more aware that we need to let more people know what we’re doing,” she said.
And the faculty is doing a lot, Hollern said.

“They’re always hard at work in the lab trying to develop their research project or finding things out,” he said. “They’re always making the step forward.”

Curing a nation
When a situation turns serious, that is when people become interested in finding a solution, said assistant professor of physiology Chengfeng Yang, who also takes part in cancer research.

“Research is always driven by a real situation,” he said. “Research always tries to solve the real problem.”

And a real problem facing citizens is cancer.

“It’s one of the top-two leading causes of death in the U.S.,” associate professor of epidemiology
Ellen Velie said.

According to the American Cancer Society, there were 12.7 million new cancer cases in 2008 worldwide. By 2030, this number is expected to increase to 21.4 million. Many factors contribute to this rise, Yang said.

One is industrialization, which has led to environmental contamination. People are exposed to various of chemicals in their daily lives that increase their risk of cancer, he said.

Another factor is modern lifestyle and diet. The high-fat diet and stress that so many people have can contribute to a higher cancer risk. But, even healthy individuals are susceptible to the disease, said David Rastall, who is a graduate student in the College of Osteopathic Medicine and has been involved with cancer research at MSU.

“You’re (sometimes) going to get cancer regardless,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how healthy you are.

“It’s a disease that’s very, very relevant to our culture, and it’s only becoming more relevant as time goes on.”

As cancer is a disease that effects the elderly more than the young, the longer the life expectancy of a population is, the more of a problem this disease becomes, Rastall said.

“It’s going to be the disease of this country because we have a longer life span.” he said.
Increased cancer rates are the driving force behind an increased interest in cancer research, Yang said.

“This has become more and more a serious problem,” he said. “People realize this and are interested in the field.”

Head on
Faculty and students studying basic sciences, veterinary medicine and epidemiology, among other subjects, are working to make contributions to the cancer cause.

Haslam said MSU has invested energy into cancer research since she came here 30 years ago. Since then, researchers have taken many different approaches to their study of the disease, Rastall said.

“Some labs are looking at cancer vaccines, others are looking at it from an evolutionary perspective and in other labs (from) a metabolic perspective,” he said. “We’re really attacking it on the front.”

Because there are many different types of cancer in existence, Rastall said there is opportunity for many significant discoveries to be made on campus.

“You’re not going to come up with a single cure because cancer is not a single disease,” he said. “It’s a potentially limitless field.”

With various university departments taking part in cancer research, MSU is working to increase its work in this field, Yang said. He has seen an increase in the hiring of people interested in conducting cancer research at MSU.

Yang said he also has noticed an increase in campus cancer funding both extramurally and intramurally. Although there is no figure for how much MSU has received in total funding for cancer research, the funding is readily available because of the strong public support for this research, Rastall said.

“Groups of voters go out there and say, ‘We want money for cancer research,’” he said. “It has a lot of funding and always will.”

Obstacles ahead
Although there is research being conducted, Haslam said work to combat this disease is not a university priority. Yang agreed MSU has stronger focus in other fields.

“MSU is known for its plant biology (and) agriculture research, but for the cancer research, it’s not as strong,” he said. “The biomedical research compared to other fields is relatively weaker than the physics, than agriculture, than the plant biology.”

One resource the university lacks is a campus hospital, Yang said.

Most top medical schools, such as those at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, have their own hospital where cancer research can be conducted, he said.

After coming up with a plan to treat a disease, MSU researchers are able to conduct clinical trials in animals, but when it comes time for clinical trials in humans, they must look for off-campus facilities, Rastall said.

“When you’re doing medical research, you want to push something through all the way to helping people,” he said. “So, MSU kind of has to stop short.”

Hollern, however, said he finds the campus’s facilities to be adequate.

“Pretty much anything that you need to do you can get done here,” he said.

Hollern said he chose to go to school at MSU because he felt that he would have the opportunity to have good training and advance his career in cancer research by working in one of the many campus laboratories.

Rastall said he was sold on the prospect of doing more than just playing a minimal part in university experiments.

“Of all the schools I was accepted to, (MSU) would allow me to make the most decisions in my own research,” he said.

“There’s a lot more room for creativity in the science (at MSU).”