Grant: Operating Grant

Lung cancer is the most common cancer worldwide, killing 1.2 million people annually (World Health Organization, 2010). Therefore, there is a pressing need to find new therapies for lung cancer. One of the major challenges in lung cancer therapy is to identify the markers or proteins critical for initiation and progression of lung cancer so that they can be targeted to kill cancer cells. Although many markers of lung cancer have been identified so far, only a few can be used as therapeutic target. Therefore, searching for new biomarkers critical for lung cancer development is the key for future diagnosis and therapy. Recently, we have discovered TAZ, a gene in an emerging signaling pathway called Hippo pathway, as a novel protein important for the development of lung cancer. In this research proposal, we will further explore whether other components of this novel pathway also coordinately contribute to lung cancer development and how dysfunction of them cause lung cancer. Our research findings will finally identified a new pathway critical for lung cancer development and will have great implications for the future diagnosis and therapy of lung cancer.