Every physician, scientist, nurse, and administrative professional who works at Emory University’s Winship Cancer Institute hopes for a day when a lung cancer diagnosis does not end so often in profound loss.  When that day comes in Georgia, the answers will stand on the shoulders of Tammy Willett’s legacy -- a young mother, wife, sister, and friend, who, in the midst of her own battle with the disease, committed to making a difference for everyone in Georgia who faces lung cancer.

The inaugural Every Breath You Take Golf Tournament, held in the fall of 2006, was the largest event-based fundraiser for lung cancer research in Georgia’s history.  The majority of the proceeds from this event were invested in Winship’s Tammy Willett and Ed Levitt Lung Cancer Research Fund/LCA GA to move forward groundbreaking discoveries in the fight against lung cancer.  The gift is stewarded by Dr. Fadlo Khuri, one of the nation’s leading lung cancer physician scientists and Winship’s Deputy Director of Clinical and Translational Research. 

Emory Winship’s dedication to lung cancer research is grounded in the heartbreaking fact that lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women in the state of Georgia and the United States.  In 2006, the American Cancer Society (ACS) estimated that in Georgia there would be 4,860 new cases of lung cancer and 4,530 deaths from the disease.  Nationally ACS projected 176,860 new cases of lung and other respiratory organ cancers for both men and women, and 163,310 lung cancer related deaths in 2006.  Only a dismal 15% of patients with advanced lung cancer live more than five years after diagnosis. More people die of lung cancer than of colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined. Lung cancer will kill three times as many men as prostate cancer this year and nearly twice as many women as breast cancer.

This grim reality demands better understanding of how lung cancer develops and urgently requires innovative therapeutic strategies to achieve increased survival.    Unfortunately, lung cancer receives the least research funding of all major cancers.  Private, state, and federal investments are critical to advancing lung cancer treatment breakthroughs.  Georgians are leading the way.   

Underscoring Emory’s national leadership position in lung cancer research, Winship Cancer Institute recently earned one of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) largest lung cancer research grants. The NCI provides these grants, which are called PO-1 Grants, to institutions which have broad-based, multidisciplinary and collaborative research capabilities.  The Georgia Cancer Coalition, Georgia's innovative public/private cancer research partnership, agreed to provide significant additional funding in conjunction with this award.  The inaugural Every Breath You Take Golf Tournament was the largest new private source of additional support for this effort in 2006.

This innovative research program is built around four collaborative scientific projects and supported by three core laboratory facilities.  The grant team is comprised of 40 researchers, clinicians, fellows and technicians from 10 departments throughout Emory's Woodruff Health Sciences Center, which encompasses all of Emory's health-related entities.  The research aims to improve lung cancer therapy by better understanding how lung cancer cells communicate through a process called cell signaling.  Researchers will study these "cell signaling pathways" and how several drugs interfere with them so that cancer cells cannot communicate and reproduce.   The primary goal of the project is to enhance therapeutic strategies for lung cancer.

The research consists of four collaborative and supporting projects:
 
Project One focuses on non-small-cell lung cancer (NCSLC) and the AKT-mTOR signaling pathway that plays an important role in cell proliferation. By determining whether certain proteins put people at higher risk of developing cancer, and integrating those proteins with tissue from a large international clinical trial, researchers plan to develop a molecular model for predicting NSCLC. The proteins then will be useful as biomarkers, or beacons that allow scientists to track cancer growth and pinpoint which cells to eliminate. Researchers also will use the proteins to test the hypothesis that specific cell mutations trigger cell proliferation and can serve as targets for inhibitors, used alone and in various combinations with chemotherapy. 
 
Project Two focuses on a specific gene, LKB1, in which inherited mutations indicate a predisposition to certain cancers, including lung. Recent studies of LKB1 have determined that, under certain conditions, cells with this mutated gene are more resistant to targeted chemotherapeutic agents. A better understanding of this gene and its cell signaling pathways will have a direct impact on the targeted clinical use of existing therapies and may provide a molecular basis for development of individualized therapies. 
 
Project Three studies the anticancer effects of farnesyl transferase inhibitors (FTI) and how they work with existing chemotherapies such as Taxol and Taxotere. FTIs are a class of experimental cancer drugs. Taxol and Taxotere are taxanes chemotherapy drugs that inhibit cancer cell growth by stopping cell division. While Taxol and Taxotere have been integral in treating NSCLC, recent studies have indicated development of resistance. FTIs have been shown to synergize with taxanes to enhance their effectiveness. While the results of this combination look promising, the molecular mechanism for the synergy is largely unknown. The objective of Project Three is to study that molecular mechanism to help develop more effective targeted therapeutic combinations against NSCLC.
 
Project Four tests the hypothesis that specific proteins, called 14-3-3 proteins, support the survival of lung cancer cells by suppressing the normal cell-death functions of similar proteins. Researchers also are studying whether 14-3-3 proteins can sensitize lung cancer cells and cell signaling pathways to chemotherapeutic agents. Disruption of these protein-to-protein interactions may provide a novel strategy to block survival signaling, which promotes continued growth of lung cancer cells.