Grant: Project Grant

Metabolism is like a recipe book and metabolites are the ingredients that our cells use to grow and function. If our cells become cancerous, they use different recipes to grow which also affects what ingredients are needed. If we can understand which ingredients are required by cancer cells and what they use these ingredients for, then we might be able to design therapies that can slow or stop cancer growth. We study amino acids, a set of metabolites that are important building blocks for making proteins but also can provide the cell with energy and other molecules. Pancreatic cancers, which is a very deadly cancer with very few effective therapies, have a significant appetite for certain amino acids, like alanine, and become dependent on transporters that bring alanine into cancer cells for growth. Alanine can be used to make proteins, other amino acids, DNA and RNA, and fat as well as energy. In this research project, we aim to understand which recipes pancreatic cancer cells use alanine for and why they become dependent on alanine transporters for growth, which might provide insight into new treatments for this deadly disease.