Therapeutic MicroRNA Delivery Suppresses Tumorigenesis in a Murine Liver Cancer Model, Research Proposal Example

Unanswered questions in this research article pertain towards underscoring the protumorigenic effects of miRNA loss-of-function; why cells were expressed at approximately equivalent levels in normal liver and tumors; reasons why miR-34a was strongly upregulated in liver tumors; what influences antitumorigenic properties and potential therapeutic utility for liver cancer in vitro and in vivo (Kota et.al, 2009)

Research questions

• What are underscoring the protumorigenic effects of miRNA loss-of-function
• Why are cells expressed at approximately equivalent levels in normal liver and tumors

Hypothesis

1. Underscoring the protumorigenic effects of miRNA loss-of-function correlates with metastasis and poor prognosis in patients affected by the disease.
2. Cells being expressed at approximately equivalent levels in normal liver and tumors provide the foundation for experiment leading to the application of highly-specific miRNA-based therapies.

Background: Effectiveness of Cancer Therapeutics

Cancer therapeutics as it relates to this research proposal is a branch of scientific/research medicine embracing prevention, detection and treatment of cancer. Prevention pertains to primary level interventions whereby cancer screening methods are further explored to detect early stages of cell proliferation. Detection relates to a secondary level approaches ruling out all provisional diagnoses in arriving at a decision to confirm a suspicion. Tertiary involved intervention therapies when a diagnosis is confirmed. It is this researcher’s belief that this study will significantly add to the body of regarding therapeutic interventions for malignancies (Cassileth & Deng, 2004).

Importantly, in 2008 2.7 million people were diagnosed with malignancies in various organs, internationally. Of this amount a total 7.1 million succumbed to the disease and died despite therapeutic interventions (Cassileth & Deng, 2004). Arguments are that cancer is no longer incurable, but cases are being diagnosed daily; and some people die within a short period of one to two years. Of major concerns to the public and health care are numerous side effects therapeutic interventions pose when the malignancy warrants the treatment.

Globally cancer rates are increasing with no immediate effective therapeutic solutions in sight. Cancer treatments range from chemotherapy to radiation therapy and monoclonal antibiotic therapies. Chemotherapy focuses on treatment of cancer cells with ant-cancer drugs that would metastases. Due to their influence on inhibiting cell division in normal cells it threatens maintenance of a healthy immune system (Cassileth & Deng, 2004).

Radiation therapy embraces management by ionizing techniques, which ultimately kills cancer cells and shrink tumors. This can be administered internally as well as externally. The strategy is to damage cancer cells, but allow normal cells in the environment to still survive. Still radiation is not without some serious side effects. They eventually succumb and die either the condition or side effects, which ever takes precedence (Cassileth & Deng, 2004).

Targeted therapies have proven successful since its invention if the early nineties. This employs applications of specific agent targeting the deregulated proteins present in cancer cells. Monoclonal antibiotic therapy falls within this category of cancer therapeutics. Homing devices are also utilized with this intervention. They bind cell surface receptors by interrupting extracellular matrix activity (Cassileth & Deng, 2004).

The importance of the foregoing analysis to establish significance of exploring the effectiveness of cancer therapeutics applied in contemporary cancer treatments since there are few cancer therapeutic interventions aimed at prevention and definite diagnostic procedures, which predisposes to inaccuracies in needle aspiration diagnoses.

Specific Aims

Aim 1.To find out what cancer therapeutics have the least side effects.

It is important to know which cancer therapeutic has the least side effects to provide evidence for cancer healthcare practitioners. This would avoid speculating on which treatment will be most effective. To obtain this data a survey will be conducted.

Aim 11. To find out what cancer therapeutic are most effective and at what sages of the disease.

It is important to know which cancer therapeutic are most effective and the stages for evidence to be provided to cancer healthcare practitioners. This would avoid speculating on which treatment will be most effective. To obtain this data a survey will be conducted.

Works cited

Cassileth, R., & Deng G. Complementary and alternative therapies for cancer. Oncologist, Vol 9 No 1; pp 80–9.2004. Print Kota, Janaiah. Chivukula, Raghu., & O’Donnell, Kathryn. Therapeutic microRNA Delivery

Suppresses Tumorigenesis in a Murine Liver Cancer Model. Cell Vol, 137, pp 1005–1017. 2009. Print