University of Colorado Cancer Center
Lung Cancer Specialized Program of Research Excellence

UCCC's Lung Cancer SPORE is a National Cancer Institute-funded program that aims to fast-track basic research findings to cancer patients and people at risk of cancer. SPOREs bring different kinds of scientists together to work on defined projects within a cancer center, and sets up an infrastructure for disease-site based collaboration with other cancer centers, federal cancer programs and industry.

Established: 1992
Current Funding Period: 2008-2013, total grant amount: $11.5 million
Principal Investigator: Dr. Paul A. Bunn, Jr., MD
Locations: University of Colorado Cancer Center, Aurora, Colo., and Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston

Goal: To bring new ideas from the laboratory to the clinic, and from the clinic to the lab, that can improve survival and quality of life while reducing the number of people who get lung cancer and who die from the disease.

Focus: To develop biomarkers that can help doctors detect lung cancer earlier, assign prognosis and predict which patients will best respond to new types of treatments.

Accomplishments

UCCC SPORE members have made discoveries that have significantly shifted how people with non-small cell lung cancer are treated. Specifically, they discovered that patient tumors can be tested for a specific gene problem called EGFR overexpression, and patients who are EGFR+ can live twice as long as people who are EGFR- when given EGFR inhibitor drugs plus chemotherapy as first-line treatment. Other discoveries include:

• 3 new biomarkers found in lung sputum that may be early predictors of high risk of lung cancer 
• A prostacyclin analog (Iloprost) may prevent lung cancer, and can reverse the lung damage caused by smoking in people who have quit
• A specific change to cancer suppressor genes, called methylization, in lung sputum samples may increase risk of developing lung cancer
• A new drug called CU201, a bradykinin antagonist dimer, can stop the growth of cancers with neuroendocrine features
• The Sema 3F gene is a tumor suppressor that can stop tumor growth
• Angiogenic squamous dysplasia is a marker of lung cancer risk
• Transcription factors such as Zeb1 can control expression of E cadherin and that the expression of these molecules can affect sensitivity to EGFR inhibitors and may be modulated by histone dececetylase inhibitors
• PPAR stops tumors from starting by causing undifferentiated tumor cells to revert to more normal cell types
• Restoring the expression of a gene called Wnt 7a to non-small cell lung cancer cells reverses cancer formation through a protein called frizzled-9

Projects

• Project 1: SEMA3F and ZEB1 in Lung Cancer: Therapy & Target Gene Discovery 
• Project 2: Growth Factor Inhibitors for Lung Cancer Therapy and Prevention
• Project 3: Prostacyclin and Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor ƒ×ƒn in Lung Cancer
• Project 4: The Biology of Pulmonary Premalignancy: Application to Risk Assessment and Chemoprevention.

Core Services

• Tissue Bank Core
• Clinical Trials Core
• Biostatistics Core
• Administration Core

Pilot Grants

Pilot project grants are offered by the UCCC Lung Cancer SPORE to help researchers start new and innovative projects that have the potential to impact lung cancer outcomes. The grants process is open to any lung cancer investigator in Colorado, and emphasizes projects that "translate" basic science and can lead to full research projects with major federal funding.

Career Development Awards

Career development awards are offered by the UCCC Lung Cancer SPORE to prepare junior investigators for independent careers in lung cancer. These awards allow the young scientists spend 2 to 4 years in a productive scientific environment before establishing their own laboratory. Awardees are selected for their own potential for a successful career in independent research, and then their proposed project and the quality of their proposals.

Seminars

Seminars in lung cancer and head & neck cancer are held the first Tuesday of the month from 4:30 to 5:30 pm in the UCCC Board Room, 6th floor of Bldg 500, Anschutz Medical Campus. The seminars are free and open to all interested parties.