The work of University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of medicine Dr. Vince Cryns seems paradoxical at first: he looks for ways to kill cells to save lives.
Cryns’ research, which focuses on finding ways of killing diseased cells in patients suffering from triple-negative breast cancer, has become revolutionary in its discovery of a link between this type of breast cancer, brain cancer and the protein alphaB-crystallin.
Triple-negative breast cancer, which is responsible for approximately 15 percent of all breast cancer cases, lacks estrogen, progesterone and HER2 receptors, the three sites normally targeted by conventional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy, Cryns said. It is a particularly aggressive cancer most commonly present in young women, with increased frequency in African American and Hispanic women.
It is also a cancer that commonly diffuses to the brain, a complication which often results in patient death, according to Cryns.
AlphaB-crystallin, the normal purpose of which is to protect cells from stress, Cryns said, has the currently inexplicable ability to guard cancer cells against death, allowing them to escape the breast tissue and survive in new environments, ultimately facilitating their spread to other areas of the body.
“Discovery of this protein provides us with a molecule we can now target with drugs,” he said. “We have a process, we understand part of the mechanism so we can now really try to pinpoint drugs that regulate the activity of this protein.”
Cryns’ lab research, which has thus been conducted by studying cancer cells grown in plastic dishes and mice models, engages various people throughout the university, including undergraduate students.
Several of his students complete part of their coursework in the lab, an opportunity which he said he values about working at UW-Madison.
“Research is very different in practice from studying biology from textbooks, so I think it’s really important to get students involved at an early age,” Cryns added. “It is very creative and it’s impossible to capture that creativity in a classroom.”
Cryns, who spent 14 years working at Northwestern University before coming to UW-Madison two years ago, said the university is among the most welcoming of undergraduate participation in research.
Cryns said he is a strong proponent of interactivity and collaboration, and believes young researchers should be motivated by the innate curiosity to understand the natural world.
“Be creative, follow your passions and try to do work that is interesting and has a potential to have an impact,” he said.
