A Message from Dr. Khaled at the UCF College of Medicine

This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we are closer than ever to finding a cancer cure.

My name is Annette Khaled and I lead the UCF College of Medicine’s Cancer Research Division. Cancer is a daunting enemy – for patients, physicians and scientists. The challenge is that we’ve been treating cancer the same way for decades – largely through radiation and chemotherapies that cause debilitating side effects. We need new therapeutics.

Fighting cancer is like trying to solve a giant jigsaw puzzle; cancer cells are complicated. We’ve learned they need a bank of microscopic parts and processes to multiply and spread.

My lab recently discovered how this bank works and how cancer cells “withdraw” molecules to thrive. A key withdrawal is a complex called a chaperonin (CCT) that helps proteins fold into functional units so cells can move quickly through the body. CCT is especially active in breast cancer cells, and we recently learned it is prevalent in neuroblastoma, a nervous system cancer in infants.

By understanding how this bank works, we can create new therapies to shut it down. Our goal: Destroy the bank and keep the body’s healthy cells unharmed.

Research like this requires financial support. Our new discovery came thanks to funding from Orlando’s Cure Bowl, the only college football game dedicated to raising money for cancer research. This year’s game is on December 17th at Camping World Stadium. The war on cancer takes a team, so hope you will support cancer research in any way you can. Together we can make cancer a disease of the past.