Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell growth. In order to maintain these high rates of growth, cancer cells must acquire and process nutrients such as glucose (sugar) and glutamine (amino acids) to make energy. One hallmark of many cancer cells is that they increase their nutrient intake and energy production to meet their increased metabolic demands. Cancer cells feature distinctly different metabolic activities than healthy cells. By understanding the metabolic differences between cancer cells and healthy cells, we may expose vulnerabilities of cancer cells to metabolic treatments. Our research is to aimed to identify new metabolic pathways that help tumours grow. To do this, we will compare the metabolism of a wide variety of lung cancers to healthy tissue. By identifying key differences, we will target these pathways with a series of drugs to try to selectively kill cancer cells, leaving healthy cells intact. By examining the metabolic changes in cancer cells, we hope to better understand how cancers develop, and hope to identify new ways of treating cancer.