Despite federal regulations that led to the partial ban of asbestos-containing materials in the 1970s and 1980s, more than 3,000 Americans annually are still diagnosed with mesothelioma—a particularly aggressive type of lung cancer linked to the inhalation of fine asbestos fibers for which there is no cure. Anthony Giordano, director of the College of Science and Technology's Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, has identified two different genes/proteins that could play a significant role in both the diagnosis and treatment of the fatal disease—as well as two promising experimental drugs.

The two genes, RB2/p130 and p53, are tumor suppressor genes that, in patients with mesothelioma, show evidence of being damaged or blocked. "Both of the genes are very important for maintaining normal cell order," says Giordano. "When their functions are interrupted their ability to act as a brake on cell proliferation and cells start to grow uncontrollably."

Targeting potential immunotherapy drug treatments, the institute's researchers have utilized in vitro laboratory experiments to identify an experimental drug which reactivates the tumor-suppressing P53 protein. This enables the body's own immune system to cause apoptosis—a programmed cell death within the tumor. According to Giordano, that drug and another experimental drug that appears to inhibit a protein that encourages cancer cell proliferation both could have a positive, synergetic effect with cisplatin, a standard chemotherapy drug used to treat mesothelioma.

The research, which was done in collaboration with Italy's National Cancer Institute in Naples and the University of Siena, was published in both Cell Cycle and Cancer Biology and Therapy. "We believe our findings could facilitate a more rapid clinical translation with these agents," says Giordano. Since mesothelioma typically has a decades-long latency period following exposure to asbestos, Sbarro Institute researchers are also studying the possibility of developing a diagnostic test that could be administered to populations at high-risk for mesothelioma and other lung diseases, such as asbestos workers and long-time tobacco smokers. Their Italian collaborators are collecting the sputum of several high-risk patients. DNA extracted from the sputum will be placed on biochips that will serve as a baseline to compare with sputum-extracted DNA two years later.

"With such monitoring, we could possibly identify genetic changes indicative of these diseases before symptoms appear, when it is often too late," says Giordano.