Zhican Qu, Ph.D.

Research Summary

Research in Dr. Qu's laboratory focuses on two major areas - the influence of tumor-stroma interactions on tumor progression including developing drug resistance and metastasis and the determination of the molecular and biochemical mechanisms that are responsible for pathological angiogenesis.

Tumor growth is not determined solely by the tumor cells but is governed by interactions between tumor cells and host stromal cells. Tumor stroma profoundly influence many steps of tumor progression by supporting cancer cell proliferation, metastasis, and tumor angiogenesis and promoting anticancer drug resistance. In many human cancers, such as breast, prostate, and colon, the stroma comprise the majority of the tumor mass, in some cases accounting for over 90% of the tumor mass. Dr. Qu's lab has been interested in studying tumor microenvironments and the effect of tumor-stroma interactions on tumor progression. Thus, both in vitro and in vivo approaches have been employed to study tumor-stroma interactions and to explore possibilities of targeting both tumor and stroma compartments for effective cancer therapies.

It has been well established that tumor growth depends on angiogenesis to bring nutritional support to tumors ensuring their exponential growth. Angiogenesis is a complex process, which consists of endothelial cell proliferation and migration followed by the differentiation phase during which the capillary structure of blood vessels is formed. The lab has been studying tumor angiogenesis and its signal transduction pathways with the objective of identifying antiangiogenic agents for cancer therapy. Southern Research's small molecule compound library resulting from over fifty years of medicinal chemistry research provides a unique resource of more potent and diversified antiangiogenic agents. Dr. Qu's lab recently discovered two Southern Research nucleoside analogs with potent antiangiogenic activities, that reveal a possible mechanism of action of combining antiproliferative and antiangiogenic activity in one molecule for targeting solid tumors.