State: California

Albert Wyrick V Scholar Award

Funded by Michael and Carole Marks

Funded by the 2014 Wine Celebration in Honor of

David Reynolds and Colleen Buckley

During the process of cancer transformation, cells hijack their internal metabolic pathways in order to utilize nutrients for the purpose of providing energy and building blocks required for rapid growth. In this V Foundation Award, we propose to use mass spectrometry to provide unprecedented insight into the activities of hundreds of metabolic enzymes in living cells as they become cancerous. We will use this information to identify unique metabolic vulnerabilities in cancer cells, essentially determining those metabolic processes that are required to sustain life and growth in cancer cells but not normal, non-cancerous cells. Ultimately, the work will allow us to design new dietary interventions and pharmacologic agents that selectively target the metabolism of cancer cells, including in breast cancer and colon cancer.

Funded by the Michael and Carole Marks Family

Albert Wyrick V Scholar Award

Myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN) is a chronic leukemia characterized with no curative treatments other than bone marrow transplantation. MPN results from the acquisition of a mutation in a blood stem cell that drives the unrestrained production of myeloid blood cells. Mutations in the gene calreticulin have been recently identified in a large proportion of MPN patients, it is currently unknown how calreticulin mutations drive MPN. Our goal is to identify the mechanism by which calreticulin mutations cause the manifestations of MPN and to develop drugs targeting calreticulin to treat this disease.