NYU Oral Cancer Center receives $ 3.1 million grant to explore interaction between nerves and cancer

The NYU Oral Cancer Center received a five-year, $ 3.1 million grant (R01 CA231396) from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Principal investigators, Donna Albertson, PhD, and Brian Schmidt, DDS, MD, PhD, seek to improve oral cancer treatment and pain relief by better understanding how a subset of nerves possessing a receptor called TRPV1 on the membrane cell contributes to the progression of cancer. and pain.

Oral cancer patients have a poor prognosis and endure debilitating pain. Albertson and Schmidt have studied oral cancer at the molecular level for nearly two decades to address these pressing clinical challenges.

In previous NCI-funded work, researchers recruited patients seen at the NYU Oral Cancer Center in a cancer pain study. They found that some patients reported developing sensitivity to spicy foods, such as chili peppers. The TRPV1 ion channel – sometimes referred to as the “capsaicin receptor” – is activated by the spicy component of peppers of the same name.

This observation led Albertson and Schmidt to hypothesize that oral cancers release mediators that sensitize and activate nociceptors (nerves sensitive to pain) and induce pain. They also postulate that anticancer nociceptors promote cancer growth.

In their newly funded research, which responds to the NCI program focused on the role of the nervous system in regulating or promoting cancer, the researchers will study the sensitization and activation of TRPV1 on nociceptors generated by cancer mediators. They will also study the reciprocal promotion of oral cancer by CGRP – a neuropeptide involved in pain signaling pathways – released by sensitized and activated nociceptors.

We propose to study the reciprocal neuron-cancer sensory interaction in relation to cancer promotion and oral cancer pain. The mechanisms of bidirectional interaction between oral cancer cells and neurons, and how the interactions promote cancer and pain, are not known. There is a critical need to define the mechanism by which oral cancers and neurons interact with each other and the effectiveness of disrupting this interaction to treat oral cancer and associated pain. “

Donna Albertson, Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, NYU College of Dentistry

“For almost 20 years, Donna and I have studied the pain and progression of oral cancer,” said Schmidt, professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery at NYU College of Dentistry and director of the NYU Oral Cancer Center. “This NCI-funded award is the first project in which we combine our respective expertise in cancer biology and neurobiology to reveal how neurons stimulate cancer growth and cancer pain. contribute to cancer progression and pain. Having identified the components of the cancer-nerve interaction with greater resolution, we seek to develop new approaches to treat oral cancer and oral cancer pain. “

By exploring the interaction between nerves and cancer, the newly funded research will lay the groundwork for the development of non-opioid pain therapy as well as cancer treatment. More immediately, the work will pave the way for clinical trials to evaluate therapies targeted at CGRP and CGRP receptors for cancer treatment and cancer pain alleviation; these therapies are currently approved by the FDA only for migraine.