October 24, 2022
As soon as cancer cells begin to metastasize, spreading from their original site to other parts of the body, the patient’s life expectancy decreases dramatically.
Javad Alizadeh, a PhD candidate in the department of human anatomy and cell sciences at the Max Rady College of Medicine, is trying to slow this process to contain cancer in one part of the body.
Alizadeh studies non-small cell lung carcinoma. It is not the most aggressive form of lung cancer, but it is the most common, accounting for about 85% of all cases.
“We know how to treat this type of cancer when it’s in the lungs,” says the scientist. “As it spreads, it becomes much more difficult to treat. After metastasis, the survival rate for this type of cancer is 5 to 10 percent. It is the leading cause of death among cancer patients of lung
“If we can stop or reduce the spread of cancer cells from the primary tumor to other organs, we can improve a patient’s prognosis.”
To describe the challenge of this work, Alizadeh says imagine adding sugar to a salt shaker. It becomes harder to find the sugar grains as they mix with the salt. Similarly, as cancer cells spread from the lungs to other parts of the body, they become more difficult to target and treat.
Alizadeh holds a prestigious Vanier Canada Postgraduate Fellowship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and is interning at the Children’s Hospital of Manitoba Research Institute. He was awarded the Graduate Studies Dean’s Student Achievement Award for the academic year 2021-2022.
Using both cultured cells and a mouse model of non-small cell lung cancer, Alizadeh is studying how autophagy (the “recycling” of old and damaged parts inside cells) is involved in the ‘escape from lung cancer to other organs.
“We think that manipulating this recycling process inside cells can slow down and potentially prevent metastasis of lung cancer cells,” he says.
After completing her bachelor’s degree in medical laboratory science and her master’s degree in medical biotechnology at Tehran University of Medical Sciences in her home country of Iran, Alizadeh set her sights on cancer research.
While working at Iran’s top cancer research institute, he struck up a conversation at a conference with UM associate professor Dr. Saeid Ghavami. As a result, in 2015, Ghavami offered Alizadeh a research assistant position at UM and became her supervisor.
Alizadeh became interested in science at a young age, but she also has a personal connection to her area of research.
“In high school I really liked chemistry and especially biology. Learning about how our cells work and how our body works was very interesting,” she says. “Then in college I became more interested in cancer research. I think one of the main things that got me on this track was my dad dying of cancer.”
This experience also gave her an understanding of what patients and their families are going through when they come to CancerCare Manitoba for treatment.
“Every morning I go to school here. I see cancer patients or family members who bring them in for chemotherapy. I wish I could talk to them and tell them a little more about what we do and how they will benefit from the research,” he says
His research is the first step toward a different way to treat non-small cell lung cancer, which he acknowledges will likely take time.
“I hope that the results of my research will be the beginning of other research projects because there is a long way to go. That is why we need the collaboration with the rest of the researchers in the field to build it” , he says
Allyn Lyons