Gran Fondo, an annual MSU cycling event, has raised more than $640,000 in its first four years for skin cancer research, as well as helping fund programs that focus on awareness and prevention.
The event, in its fifth year, was held June 24 in downtown Grand Rapids. The proceeds raised by the race go directly to MSU's College of Human Medicine by allowing researchers to conduct studies that could lead to groundbreaking treatments for skin cancers like melanoma.
Jamie Bernard, who is also an assistant professor and recipient of a Gran Fondo grant, has been studying the direct relationship between how obesity increases one’s risk of skin cancer.
“Skin is an excellent model to study the systemic inflammatory effects of belly fat,” Bernard said. “It’s not in direct contact wit this adipose tissue depot, like many of the other obesity-associated cancers.”
Bernard’s interest in this specific correlation came from an experiment where levels of abdominal tissue was correlated with the number of UV-induced non-melanoma skin cancers.
From the research that she has done with the help of the $15,000 Gran Fondo grant she received, Bernard found this relationship between skin cancer and obesity can be reversed.
Now, Bernard is looking to explore whether factors released are involved in the UV-induced DNA damage and the damage response.
Researchers also rely heavily upon the MSU Gran Fondo grants because it opens up the door to larger grants. Larger organizations like the National Institutes of Health have the money to support more research such as testing on humans who are suffering from skin cancer, which can be millions of dollars.
Dr. Richard Neubig, chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at MSU, received a $35,000 Gran Fondo grant to continue his studies on a combination of drugs that could stop melanoma from growing. Neubig found from his research that Trametinib, a cancer fighting drug that is usually given to treat melanoma, stops working after some period of time.
“Advances in cancer research often start with an idea that has never been tested before,” Neubig said. “Most major funding agencies want to see substantial preliminary data to convince them that the idea has a good chance to work."
Dr. Neubig and postdoctoral fellow Dr. Kate Appleton were able to use the Gran Fondo grant to conclude that when the Trametinib is more powerful when mixed with a compound called CCG-222740.
Trametinib is melanoma therapy that is different from what people think when they hear “chemotherapy.” The drug doesn’t directly kill all cells like most chemotherapies do, so the side effects aren’t as significant.
The downside to treatment with this drug is that resistance develops quickly, thus they stop working. The combination that Dr. Neubig has created is a “resistance mechanism that makes the melanomas sensitive again.”
Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.
