Rui Wang, assistant professor in the Department of Surgery, and Moeez Rathore, a research scientist, recently co-authored an article published in Gastroenterology.
Their article is titled “Leucine-Rich Alpha-2-Glycoprotein 1 Promotes Metastatic Colorectal Cancer Growth Through Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 3 Signaling.” Wang was the corresponding author and Rathore was first author.
They identified a novel signaling pathway through which the surrounding liver communicates with colorectal cancer that metastasizes to the liver and promotes cancer cell growth and survival.
The research team recently received an NIH/NCI R37 grant to continue characterizing the communication between liver-cancer cells and to develop novel therapies to block the crosstalk and treat patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.