Dr. Puri receives pilot grant from the Center for Clinical and Translational Science
Dr. Puri receives pilot grant from the Center for Clinical and Translational Science Heading link
Neelu Puri, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, was awarded a pilot grant called “Therapeutic Targeting of Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 5 in Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor Resistance and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Tumorigenicity” from the UIC Center for Clinical and Translational Science.
Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer in the country with 125,070 deaths predicted in 2024. The impact and public health relevance of discovering better treatments for lung cancer is immense. The goal of the project is to study a protein that causes lung tumor cells to multiply and determine its role in development of lung cancer and how it correlates PRMT5 expression with smoking status.
The researchers will compare the expression level of PRMT5 and the efficacy of PRMT5 inhibitors on the growth of cancer cells. They will determine how PRMT5 causes patients to become resistant to certain cancer therapies, such as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) that are used to treat patients with a mutated EGFR gene. Lung tumors can become resistant to drug treatments after 10 to 18 months by becoming more invasive through a process called epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT), which enables cancer cells to spread to other body parts. They will investigate whether inhibition of PRMT5 can prevent EMT, overcome inflammatory effects of cigarette smoke and resistance to EGFR inhibitors.
Their studies indicate that PRMT5 levels may be increased in the tumors of patients who smoke. Since 90% of people who get lung cancer are smokers, they will examine PRMT5 expression in lung tumors from smokers, non-smokers and former smokers. They will also study expression of PRMT5 in normal lung tissue from smokers/non-smokers.
Using PRMT5 inhibitors, they plan to develop new lung cancer treatments to improve outcomes of smoking-induced lung cancer.
Dr. Puri’s collaborators are Odile David, MD, MPH, director of Cytopathology Fellowship Program, College of Medicine Chicago; Robert Hillwig, MD, clinical assistant professor, Department of Health Sciences Education; Mohammed Alam, PhD, research scientist, Department of Biomedical Sciences; Weihai Zhan, PhD, director of student research, Office of Research; and Bhavin Patel, MD, MS, assistant professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences.