Carol Casey, Ph.D., professor, internal medicine-gastroenterology, received a two-year award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to study liver metastases in colorectal cancer.
She is part of a multiple primary investigator project with Peter Thomas, Ph.D., professor of surgery at Creighton University.
The goal of the study is to examine how ethanol exposure can lead to altered processing and degradation of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), a glycoprotein known to impact tumor biology. CEA is secreted by colorectal tumor cells and processed in the liver.
An increase of CEA has been linked to the potential for colorectal cancer cells to form liver metastases. In addition, there is a known correlation between elevated circulating CEA levels and alcohol consumption, as well as a link between alcoholism and liver metastasis in colorectal cancer patients, but the mechanisms are not clear.
The study hopes to gain a better understanding of how alcoholic liver injury exacerbates the effects of CEA, how these impairments could impact metastatic liver disease during colorectal cancer and perhaps provide key information that could lead to therapeutic interventions.
Other internal medicine-gastroenterology researchers working with Dr. Casey include Benita McVicker, Ph.D., Kathryn Lazure, M.D., and Dean Tuma, Ph.D.