Testing the effect of metabolites in causing lung carcinoma

[science567]

Hello all.

My science experiment is based on finding which metabolites in the blood are present in lung cancer patients in higher or lower quantities than are in healthy people, and how these metabolites can be used as biomarkers to test the eventual development of lung carcinoma in cancer patients. However, I am unsure whether or not this would be too complicated to test in few months' time. In addition, if this project can be simplified enough for me to undergo an experiment, I am unsure how to convince research institutes, etc. for me to work there. For the experiment I will need to receive blood samples from lung cancer/cancer free patients.

I'd appreciate any feedback that would help me move on with this project.

[SciB]

Hi,

While this is a great research topic, it is not one that can be done in a short time. Cancer researchers have spent decades looking for specific markers to screen people for cancer with only limited success. Cells that become cancerous undergo many changes along the way to malignancy and they don't necessarily show up as specific changes in the blood until an actual tumor is formed.

Projects involving specimens or blood from human patients require institutional review and approval and have to be done in a professional research lab under strict controls. Unless you have a mentor who is doing research on lung cancer it would be difficult for a high school lab to undertake such experiments.

I would do some reading online of the current literature about lung cancer screening and see if there is some way you could come up with a hypothesis that you could test by performing some virtual experiments on the computer. This 'in silico' method is actually used by research scientists and the data is published in respected journals.

Lung cancer is definitely linked to tobacco smoking and the new electronic cigarettes that are 'vaped' rather than smoked may offer some protection against the disease. The e-cigs do contain nicotine, however, and while this chemical is not thought to cause lung cancer, it might be worth looking at the published scientific literature about its action on lung cells to determine whether nicotine might have some cancer-promoting activity. This would be important to know for health reasons.

I wish I could give you a more positive answer, but cancer research is an immensely difficult and complex discipline and even the simplest models require equipment and facilities way beyond the reach of most high schools. Hopefully the other experts will weigh in with some more suggestions on how you can approach this interesting and important subject.

Good luck!

Sybee

[caraskl]

A new study published by the journal CHEST shows that 149 out of 534 metabolites identified differed significantly between control groups and those with lung cancer. This suggests that patients with lung cancer have altered metabolic processes. The study was done at the Cleveland Clinic. You might want to read the article for ideas.