Targeted therapies, drug resistance, and two recent cancer research publications

In this episode of the TheoryLab podcast, two American Cancer Society grantees discussed key takeaways from their recent publications. In the first part of the conversation, which is intended for a lay audience, Dr. Joshua Andersen and Dr. Bhuminder Singh talked about targeted therapies, treatment side effects, and drug resistance. Then they moved into a more technical discussion of their recent papers. Dr. Andersen recently published findings showing that “TNK1 is a ubiquitin-binding and 14-3-3-regulated kinase that can be targeted to block tumor growth.” https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25622-3 Dr. Singh published a study recently showing that “Induction of apically mistrafficked epiregulin disrupts epithelial polarity via aberrant EGFR signaling.” https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.255927 Joshua L. Andersen, PhD, is Associate Professor of Biochemistry at Brigham Young University. He is a two-time American Cancer Society grantee. Bhuminder Singh, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Medicine and Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and he is also a two-time American Cancer Society grantee. 1:25 – Dr. Andersen explains why his lab is focused on improving targeted therapies 2:31 – Dr. Singh describes how his research is focused on addressing drug resistance in colorectal cancer 4:28 – Dr. Andersen dives into his lab’s new Nature Communications paper on a new cancer driver—"it’s been probably the most rewarding project that I’ve been a part of in my career” 8:11 – Dr. Singh asks a few questions about the paper: “Are there any mutations in TNK1 in human cancer?” 10:01 – What ubiquitinated proteins was it binding to? 11:44 – Is TNK1 itself ubiquitinated in certain conditions? 12:49 – Dr. Singh explains takeaways from his paper, “Induction of apically mistrafficked epiregulin disrupts epithelial polarity via aberrant EGFR signaling” 19:16 – Follow-up questions from Dr. Andersen: “How could the mistrafficking of a single ligand affect its localization so dramatically?” 22:04 – “That has to send a signal then to start trafficking the intracellular EGFR out to the apical side of the cell, right?” 27:49 – “As someone who hasn’t really thought about cell polarity very much inside a solid tumor, what would be the effects of mistrafficking in terms of the architecture of a solid tumor?” 31:18 – The impact of American Cancer Society funding on their research