Harnessing Cancer Cells
Designated a Trailblazer by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Chase Cornelison, assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering, is combining his two areas of expertise—neural tissue engineering and brain cancer—in a groundbreaking way. He aims to harness the proliferating power of cancer cells to treat brain and spinal cord injuries and restore function of the central nervous system.
Spinal cord and brain injuries are so devastating, often causing lifelong disability or paralysis, because unlike cells in other organs, neural cells do not recover or regenerate. And this problem is compounded by the development and persistence of chronic inflammation after injury.
To develop new therapeutic strategies, Cornelison studies the microenvironment where cancer cells meet and train normal neural cells to suppress inflammation and aid “tissue” or tumor growth. The Cornelison Group is specifically looking at what proteins and sugars cancer cells make that serve as signals to instruct neural cells and calm down inflammation.
He explains, “We’re looking at how the cancer cells are interacting with the neural cells and trying to identify some of the signals passed to those cells so we can reengineer those signals as implantable material to try and regrow an injured spinal cord or injured brain tissue.”
