National Cancer Institute awards WSU professor grant to study racial ...

April 23, 2013

Adhip Majumdar, Ph.D., D.Sc.

A Wayne State University School of Medicine professor will use a new two-year grant from the National Institutes of Health to explore why more African-Americans are dying from colorectal cancers than Caucasians.

Adhip Majumdar, Ph.D., D.Sc., will use the $260,348 award (R21CA175916-012013-1) from the National Cancer Institute ?to collect preliminary data to test his lab?s hypothesis that the high incidence and related mortality rate of colorectal cancers in African-Americans, especially men, is due to an increase in cancer stem/stem-like cells. The cells are a small population of long-living cells in the colon that can proliferate indefinitely and can form tumors in an immune-deficient mouse model.

?One doesn?t really know why it happened. We are one of the first grants to look at this,? he said.

The R21 was created by the National Institutes of Health to encourage exploratory and developmental research. The study of racial disparities in cancer is a relatively new area of research, he said, and the grant was ?unbelievably competitive.?

Dr. Majumdar is a professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, and senior research career scientist at the John D. Dingell Veteran Affairs Medical Center and a faculty member of the Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. In collaboration with colleagues at Karmanos, the VA and the WSU Department of Pathology and Divisions of Gastroenterology, he will test the hypothesis by isolating colonic mucosal cells that are enriched in cancer stem/stem-like cells from biopsy specimens and colonic washings collected during colonoscopies of African-American and Caucasian patients with colonic polyps. The scientists will inject the cells under the skin of a mouse model. They anticipate a higher incidence of tumor formation by the cells from African-Americans.

?The impact will be (that) if we do see that, certain populations, like African-Americans after age 50, become a high risk group, so they probably need to be monitored for polyps. They have to be monitored much more regularly than other populations,? he said.

The new project, ?Racial Disparity in Colorectal Cancer: Molecular Mechanisms,? is an offshoot of his ongoing studies of age-related cancers, including colon cancer, funded by the National Institute of Aging.? ?We work on cancer stem cells that are drug resistant,? he said.

Source: http://prognosis.med.wayne.edu/article/national-cancer-institute-awards-wsu-professor-grant-to-study-racial-disparities-in-colorectal-cancers

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