Chemistry Prof. Liangliang Sun Awarded $2M Grant by the National Cancer Institute

Prof. Liangliang Sun has been awarded a $2M R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute for quantitative multi-level proteomics of human colorectal cancer cells and tumors. About 53,200 people in the US died in 2020 due to colorectal cancer (CRC) based on the estimate from the American Cancer Society. A better understanding of CRC at the molecular level will undoubtedly lead to more effective therapies. Prof. Sun is collaborating with Profs. Amanda Hummon and Heather Hampel (cancer biologists) at The Ohio State University and Prof. Xiaowen Liu (bioinformatics expert) at Tulane University to pursue a better understanding of CRC through quantitative multi-level proteomics.

The R01 funding will allow the team to develop novel proteomics and bioinformatics tools to enable multi-level and comprehensive proteomics analysis of CRC cells and tumors. The team will gain new insights into the molecular mechanisms of CRC metastasis through quantitative multi-level proteomics of two isogenic CRC cell lines representing the primary tumor cells and the metastatic cells in lymph nodes. They will also pursue a better understanding of Lynch Syndrome, an inherited form of CRC caused by mutations in DNA mismatch repair genes, via quantitative multilevel proteomics of patients’ tumors. The projects will generate an unprecedented resource for the cancer biology community and identify new protein biomarkers for CRC diagnosis and drug development.