"The idea that one medicine does not cure all patients has been known for more than 100 years," says Nie, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "There has to be a molecular difference among people that causes them to respond to therapeutics in different ways, whether you're talking about a common headache or cancer."

Advances in molecular biology, nanotechnology, computer imaging, tissue engineering and other technologies are enabling Tech researchers to develop new molecular-based approaches in the understanding and treatment of cancer.

"If we can use nanotechnology to figure out the molecular differences between people," Nie explains, citing his specialty as an example, "we can diagnose the disease more effectively and administer treatment tailored to an individual's molecular profile."

Nie's comments reflect an important shift in cancer research in recent years.

"In the past, cancers were largely treated based upon the tissue type," says Terri Battle, Biol 93, a postdoctoral research scientist with the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. "If you had breast cancer you were treated in a certain way; if you had colon cancer you were treated in a different way. It was clear that some people responded better than others.

"With the advent of new molecular and cell biology tools," she notes, "we've come to appreciate that these seemingly unrelated cancers may have similar molecular mutations. The goal today is to discover the mutation driving the cancer and then treat that mutation."

Cancer research at Tech embraces a spectrum of technologies, from improvements in traditional therapies to studies of cancer's development in molecular detail. Much of the work involves collaboration with Emory University scientists through the joint Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Assistant professor May D. Wang's long-term research interest is to identify cancer-specific molecular profiles, the biopathways that guide their function and interaction and then incorporate the information into an "-omic" (genomic, proteomic, metabolomic) data-analysis system that can help uncover the fundamental mechanism of cancer. Her overall goal is to aid doctors and researchers in early detection of cancer and provide a tool for cancer drug-target screening.

Since most cancer experiments can't be performed on humans, the next best thing would be to create a living, three-dimensional model. That's exactly what Yadong Wang, an assistant professor in the Tech-Emory biomedical engineering department is doing. In collaboration with Leland Chung of Emory University, Wang is working with biomaterials and tissue engineering techniques to build a model of a cancerous prostate. The structure will be comprised of a biomaterial scaffold seeded with prostate cancer cells. Human cancer cells behave differently in a 3-D environment than they do in Petri dishes, and the physiology of animals is often different from that of humans, Wang says.

The 3-D model idea could be adapted for other cancers such as breast, ovarian and lung. The artificial prostate could also serve as a test bed for new cancer drugs, Wang adds.

Chemotherapy is widely used to treat a variety of cancers, but there's a downside.

"It kills cells, but it doesn't differentiate between tumor cells and normal cells," says Sahar Javanmard, Chem 95, PhD 02, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Md., "We're trying to come up with a way for chemotherapeutic drugs to selectively hone in on tumor cells and improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy."

L. Andrew Lyon, associate professor at Tech's School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, has helped develop nanosize particles called core/shell nanogels that can target and trick cancer cells into absorbing them, with the potential for delivering a pharmaceutical payload from within and avoiding the damage to healthy cells caused by traditional chemotherapy.

Marion Sewer, an assistant professor of biology, investigates genes that encode a particular family of hormone producing enzymes. She is interested in identifying the molecular processes that activate these genes in response to chronic stresses.

"There's no one particular set of symptoms that describe cancer," she says. "It can manifest itself in many ways, but all cancers operate as a population of cells that grows out of control."

Another Tech biology professor, Harish Radhakrishna, is building upon previous research that showed higher than-normal levels of fat-like molecules called lysophospholipids (LPA) in ovarian cancer patients. LPA, while contributing to normal physiological functions including muscle contraction and healthy cell growth, can also stimulate tumors caused by lung, breast, prostate and ovarian cancer.

Radhakrishna and his graduate students have discovered that high LPA decreases the protective functions of the p53 protein, suggesting a means that allows cancer cells to multiply unchecked. The research could lead to LPA-controlling drugs as a way of combating cancer.

Jim Powers, a Regents' professor in chemistry and biochemistry, developed the drug AK295, which has proven its worth in alleviating numbness and tingling in the outer extremities of head injury and stroke models in animals, a condition that also affects about 40 percent of breast cancer patients who take the drug Taxol.

Can eating ice cream help prevent colon cancer? Studies by Al Merrill, who holds the Smithgall chair in molecular cell biology in the School of Biology, suggest that a unique type of fat present in soy and dairy products plays an essential role in maintaining healthy signaling pathways among and within cells.

Sphingolipids have demonstrated cancer-suppressive effects in many types of cancer cells in culture and lab mice with either colon or prostate tumors, according to Merrill.

"We've done experiments with sphingolipids from both dairy products and soy," he explains. "In both cases we found that by feeding these molecules to animals that had either a genetic predisposition to developing colon tumors or that were exposed to a chemical agent that would cause colon cancer, there was a significant reduction in the number of tumors."

Imaging technology is one of Xiaoping Hu's many research interests. A Georgia Research Alliance eminent scholar and a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory, Hu is helping improve the quality of information provided by magnetic resonance imaging, a key tool for tracking cancer's presence through the body over time.

Advances in radiation therapy treatment involving radioactive nucleotide implants figure prominently in the research activities of Eva Lee, an associate professor with a joint appointment to the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Emory's Winship Cancer Institute. Lee has created a software program that helps doctors place radioactive implants where they will kill the most cancer cells while limiting the amount of radiation received by nearby normal tissue.

Radiation has long been used to shrink cancerous tumors, but its application has not kept up with advances in delivery methods, according to Farzad Rahnema, chairman of the Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics Program in the School of Mechanical Engineering.

In collaboration with Tim Fox of Emory University, the scientists are using a sophisticated set of algorithms and computational methods to create a new computational tool that will more precisely calculate radiation dosage and target tumors more accurately.

Rather than attack cancerous growths in the body with radiation from the outside in, Chris Wang, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, is improving a method for fighting tumors from the inside out.

In neutron brachytherapy, an encapsulated neutron-emitting isotope is inserted into the tumor. Neutrons are effective tumor destroyers, but the technique has received only limited use because suitable neutron sources are too large and too weak to distribute the energy evenly throughout a tumor. Wang has developed a neutron source 20 times smaller and five times more powerful than previous neutron sources. Wang is also working to treat prostate cancer more effectively with a combination of his improved NBT and another neutron-based technique known as neutron capture therapy, which involves injecting a patient with a neutron-sensitive compound that settles among the cancer cells. Low-energy neutrons are drawn to the compound like a magnet, killing the surrounding cancer.

Joseph Wu, an assistant professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, believes oncolytic viruses — the kind that kill cancer cells but not normal ones — could play an important role in the cancer fight by destroying tumors or at least mitigating the side effects of traditional treatment.

Gang Bao is shining a new light on cancer cells. Working with colleagues at Emory, Bao and his team of graduate students have designed a biosensor that consists of a fluorescent dye molecule and a quencher molecule on opposite ends of a hairpin-shaped oligonucleotide — a substance built of a short RNA or DNA molecule.

Bao envisions a comprehensive system in which molecular beacons detect cancerous cells in lab-tested bodily fluids. When appropriate fluids cannot be obtained, other beacons could be introduced into the body to detect the cancerous cells. Beacons could then be used to monitor the success of cancer therapy.