Improving outcomes for a deadly sub-type of lung cancer

TheoryLab

Lung squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) is the 2nd most common sub-type of lung cancer, accounting for around 30% of lung cancer diagnoses. And it is a particularly deadly disease that’s characterized by poor therapeutic response, a high relapse rate, and poor prognosis. Furthermore, unlike other subtypes of lung cancer, to date there are no therapies to specifically target the LSCC subtype. Verline Justilien, PhD, has an American Cancer Society grant to study an oncogenic protein called Ect2. Too much of it is a bad thing, and the more you have of it as a LSCC patient, the worse your prognosis is. What if we could know which patients have a worse prognosis, so we could treat them more aggressively? What if a therapy could target Ect2? Dr. Justilien takes us through her very promising research into a kind of cancer where we urgently need progress. And she also Verline Justilien, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology at the Mayo Clinic. 3:28 – What is lung squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC)? 5:33 – A goal of precision medicine is targeting and treating specific tumor types; but no therapies are available that specifically treat LSCC. Dr. Justilien talks about why that is. 8:40 – What is an oncogene? 9:53 – Why is the Ect2 oncogene so important… 11:54 - …and why is it so important in this sub-type of lung cancer? 14:33 – Could the levels of Ect2 in a lung squamous cell carcinoma patient be used to predict patient outcomes? 17:49 – On how her team is trying to target Ect2 therapeutically 19:04 – How ACS funding has impacted her research 21:08 –What advice would she have given to her high school self to encourage her to accomplish her dreams? 23:14 – While female college students of color report interest in STEM majors at an equivalent rate as white women students, they remain the least represented group in STEM. What could be done to attract and retain more women of color in research? How could ACS help? 26:39 – A message she’d like to share with cancer patients, caregivers, and survivors