A Comparative Cancer Center is being established at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell with the aim of bridging basic research efforts in cell biology, signal transduction and virology with translational research and the clinical treatment of animal patients with cancer. The intention is for the Cancer Center to integrate the strengths of the Cornell community in structural biology, as well as new initiatives in Chemical Biology and Genomics, with basic and translational cancer research. Through the combined efforts of ten laboratories working in different areas of cell biology, signal transduction and virology, and five structural biology groups (three using X-ray crystallography and two using NMR), the three dimensional structures will be determined for a variety of proteins relevant to cell growth control and cancer. The ultimate goal is to use this structural information, together with small molecule chemistry to develop novel modulators/inhibitors of the protein activities, and examine the usefulness of these molecules as therapeutics in the veterinary clinic. An important step toward achieving this goal will be to establish a Recombinant Protein Expression Laboratory that will serve as a direct link between the cell/molecular biology groups affiliated with the Comparative Cancer Center and the structural laboratories. The facility will be managed by a Research Associate Professor and a full-time Research Support Specialist and will contain all of the necessary equipment and reagents for performing high level recombinant protein expression for structural determinations. The plan is to develop the Recombinant Protein Expression Laboratory in stages, with the ultimate goal being to establish a facility with full capability for the generation of recombinant proteins in E. coli, insect cells and mammalian cell systems for structural analyses. Each of the participating laboratories will have full access to the facility and its overall direction will be advised by an executive committee consisting of members from each of the major participating research areas and departments. The expectation is that the development of the Recombinant Protein Expression Laboratory will represent a key first step in coordinating campus wide efforts in basic research that will ultimately prove beneficial to animal cancers that are highly relevant and/or approximate the human disease.
| Kauppinen, Krista P; Duan, Faping; Wels, Jared I et al. (2005) Regulation of the Dbl proto-oncogene by heat shock cognate protein 70 (Hsc70). J Biol Chem 280:21638-44 |
