Grant: Operating Grant - PA: Alberta Cancer Foundation - Research (bridge funding)

Argonaute proteins are essential for normal development as they control expression of most human genes through a process called RNA interference. In addition to their roles in regulating gene expression, Argonaute proteins are essential for RNA interference-based therapies which are being developed to treat infectious diseases as well as genetic diseases such as cancer. However, over-expression of Argonaute proteins has been linked to metastasis and thus maintaining an optimal level of activity is essential for human health. Our laboratory is focused on understanding how Argonaute proteins are regulated. One obvious implication from our work is that developing drugs that modulate the enzymatic activity of these proteins may serve to block metastasis of breast and colon cancer cells.