Stimulus dollars also are helping Dr. Arun Sreekumar in MCG's Cancer Center employ some innovative measures to determine the pathways of prostate cells and the missteps they take to become cancer. The comprehensive look should lead to better detection and treatment planning for the disease. For instance, no treatment may be the best treatment when the disease is slow growing and appears later in life.

Drs. Sreekumar and George Michailidis, a bioinformatics expert at the University of Michigan, want to develop the computational tools that will enable them to compare the ton of data they already have from 42 men with healthy prostates or more benign and aggressive forms of prostate cancer. Data include the genes involved, the proteins the genes make and the metabolites, which suggest which proteins were active. Previously scientists have had snippets of one of more of these compartments, but Dr. Sreekumar and others believe a comprehensive look is needed to get a clear picture of prostate cancer progression.

"There is a lot of crosstalk between genes, proteins and metabolites," he said. "They act, not only independently, they also affect each other. It's like an industry," he said. "You don't want to look at the cell from only one angle. You are really trying to understand the cell, the way it is functioning. When the situation is this complex, you really can't do it any other way."

That means ensuring they are comparing apples to apples. "You have to (determine) a common identifier, so we can say, 'Yes this protein can be compared to this gene,' or 'This metabolite can be compared to this protein,'" Dr. Sreekumar said.

These head-on comparisons should also help scientists identify the most significant missteps, likely the best targets for new therapies.

Source: Medical College of Georgia