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ENVIRONMENTAL CANCER-RELATED PROTEINS: MOLECULAR STRUCTURE TO MOLECULAR EPIDEMIOLOGY TO MOLECULAR THERAPEUTICS Friday, November 5, 2004 Room 825 SWM, 1:00 PM Professor Paul W. Brandt-Rauf Chair, Environmental Health Sciences Mailman Sch. of Public Health
Environmental exposures can contribute to the carcinogenic process by altering the expression and/or structure of cancer-related proteins, including those encoded by common oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. This aberrant expression leads to disordered growth signal transduction and uncontrolled cellular proliferation resulting in tumors. Determination of the structure-function relationships of these cancer-related proteins can lead to new molecular biomarkers that can be used to follow the carcinogenic process in exposed human populations and evaluate their risk for disease as well as the development of new therapeutic and prophylactic interventions to correct their effects. In addition, the effects of environmental carcinogenic exposures on the expression of cancer-related proteins demonstrate considerable inter-individual variation mediated by specific gene-environment interactions involving genetic polymorphisms in carcinogen metabolism and DNA repair pathways; detection of these polymorphisms allows for identification of particularly susceptible sub-populations at the greatest risk of cancer from environmental exposures who could be targeted for more aggressive interventions. |
