The article, “Treating Cancer: Researchers Develop and Improve Techniques for Attacking Cancer,” features the research of Shabbir Ahmed, Eva Lee, Martin Savelsbergh, and Ming Yuan

Ahmed and Savelsberg, along with graduate student Halil Ozan Gozbasi, are improving intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) treatment plans to minimize damage to critical organs. This type of treatment plan is challenging because some organs move. In her research, Lee is addressing motion issues, specifically with liver and lung cancer patients, to develop treatment plans that account for breathing, motion, and shape changes throughout the treatment regime. In another project, Lee is incorporating biological information into treatment planning for prostate cancer, IMRT and brachytherapy – the placement of radioactive “seeds” inside a tumor. Ming Yuan, a Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Cancer Scholar, is using computational and mathematical approaches to analyze how gene expression evolves over time in individuals with breast cancer and whether these patterns can predict treatment outcome. In another project, Yuan is collaborating with two University of Wisconsin professors to conduct expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) studies, the analysis of which allows the researchers to identify genomic hot spots that regulate gene transcription and expression on a genome-wide scale.

Click here/ to read the entire article. To read the previous two reports in the series, click here  for the first report, titled “Understanding the Origins of Cancer: Scientists Investigate the Molecular Changes that Lead to Disease,” and click here  for the second report, titled “Diagnosing Cancer: Researchers Pursue Many Directions Toward Early Detection and Diagnosis.”