Pausing today to give thanks for this amazing Fight Colorectal Cancer community, we’d like to especially salute the doctors, nurses, family and friends who work every single day to support people living with colorectal cancer, and to the researchers who devote endless days and nights fighting this disease.

Just before the holiday, we got a final progress report from Dr. Jon Chung, who received the 2011 Lisa Fund grant.  Every single dollar that supported his work came from this community of people who donated to the Lisa Fund, so you should know what your generous donations brought:

“I am extremely grateful for the award of this grant. It has been hugely beneficial in my career. Since the end of the grant funding period, I have been promoted to faculty at Johns Hopkins…As a result of this grant, the laboratory has developed a firm interest in developing [new] inhibitors for Hedgehog signaling…in colorectal cancer—an area of research that had not been previously a focus of the laboratory. I believe that the focus cancer signaling pathways will be a feature of my current and future career as a cancer researcher.”    

Dr. Chung is researching one of the signaling ‘pathways’ that cause colorectal cancer to change from localized to metastatic disease. During his Lisa-funded year, he and his coworkers identified a new gene involved with activating Hedgehog, which eventually could lead to a new biomarker test.

So thank you: Not only did your contributions build a concrete step forward in the fight against metastatic cancer, but you made a life-changing impact on a promising young scientist—and a whole laboratory.

At our Thanksgiving tables today, there are a few beloved faces missing—I think of Lisa Dubow, who started the Lisa Fund as thanks for researchers who gave her an extra 9 years of life. And I think of Kate Murphy, who started this blog to bring Research news to you, and who also used her years living with cancer to make a huge impact on countless lives.

In the great circle of life, their legacy lives into the future, thanks to people like Dr. Chung and you in this community.

 Read more: about Dr. Chung’s work,  and Lisa Dubow.

Jon Chung PhD

Dr. Jon Chung
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

HEDGEHOG PATHWAY TARGETED THERAPEUTICS FOR METASTATIC COLORECTAL CANCER

Grant amount: $45,000

Dr. Jon Chung is studying alternatives to the traditional Hedgehog signaling pathway in colon cancer cells.  He is exploring crosstalk within the cell between the Hedgehog and Wnt pathways and screening for drugs that block both pathways at the same time, potentially stopping cancer development.

He is also looking at how Hedgehog interacts with DNA damage pathways — research that could lead to treatment that would destroy metastatic cancer cells.

From Dr. Chung’s research proposal:

The Hedgehog signaling pathway has recently emerged as another key player in colorectal carcinogenesis and this pathway is progressively activated during metastasis.  The switch to Hedgehog pathway activation that occurs as tumors metastasize presents an opportunity for developing therapies for metastatic colorectal cancer.  My project will focus on targeting the Hedgehog pathway.

Hedgehog is a gene that is critical to the development of the human embryo.  Signals controlled by the gene direct cells to express themselves as different parts of the body with different functions.  When Hedgehog expression isn’t normal, its changes can lead to cancer, particularly cancer that spreads to distant sites (metastasizes).

Recently, drugs to treat colorectal cancer that directly inhibit the Hedgehog pathway have been disappointing. Dr. Chung is taking a new and different look at Hedgehog signals, particularly when they interact with other important colorectal cancer pathways.

Dr. Chung is a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Department of Radiation Oncology & Molecular Radiation Sciences.

He attended the University of Cambridge where he received his BA and MSci degrees in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) in 2002. In 2006, he completed his PhD at the University of Manchester. After finishing his PhD, he started postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Fred Bunz at Johns Hopkins where he has been investigating DNA damage checkpoint and p53 responses in colorectal cancer cells.

Dr. Chung has published research in:

• PLoS Genetics, Cdk2 Is Required for p53-Independent G2/M Checkpoint Control,February 6, 2010, e1000863.
• Cell Cycle: Checkpoint bypass and cell viability, Volume 9, Issue 11, February 26, 2010.

Please help support innovative research like Jon Chung’s with a gift to the Lisa Fund.

Jon Chung PhD

The 2011 Fight Colorectal Cancer-AACR Fellowship, in memory of Lisa Dubow, has been awarded to Jon H. Chung, PhD  from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

His proposed research is Hedgehog Pathway Targeted Therapeutics for Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.

With the award, Dr. Chung will study alternatives to the traditional Hedgehog signaling pathway in colon cancer cells.  He will explore crosstalk within the cell between the Hedgehog and Wnt pathways and screen for drugs that block both pathways at the same time, potentially stopping cancer development. Read the rest of this entry »