Oklahoma State University: Cancer Sucks Donations Vital To OSU-CHS Cancer Research

Press release from Oklahoma State University:

2021-12-20

Media Contact:
Sara Plummer | Communications Coordinator | 918-561-1282 | sara.plummer@okstate.edu

For more than 25 years Rashmi Kaul has been studying and researching infectious disease
and cancer development and how the two are connected.

“The burden of cancer on our society worldwide is huge and about 15 to 20 percent
of cancers are associated with infections, but the underlying mechanisms are poorly
understood,” said Kaul, a professor of immunology in the School of Biomedical Sciences
at OSU Center for Health Sciences.

“I was always intrigued by how our immune system keeps our body healthy despite being
surrounded by trillions of good and bad bacteria,” she said. “Chronic infections by
pathogenic microbes, if left untreated, can lead to cancer development including human
papillomavirus (HPV) or Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C virus. We currently have vaccines
for HPV and Hepatitis B, but not for the Hepatitis C virus.”

Kaul, who has been at OSU-CHS for 17 years, has established a research program utilizing
human tissues, animal models and cell culture models to understand gender-based differences
in disease development.

“My research efforts at OSU-CHS have broadly focused on studying the hormone-related
factors, specifically estrogen, in infectious disease and cancer development,” she
said. “Certain cancers are more prevalent in males than females, indicating a hormonal
role in inflammation and immunity.”

Kaul said her research would not be as advanced as it is without the generous support
of Cancer Sucks Inc., and its founder Rick Horton who have donated funds for her research
for the past 16 years.

Horton established Cancer Sucks Inc., in 1998 in honor of his mother, Donna Holland White, who died from cancer in 1996.
The organization, run by volunteers who have all been touched by cancer, focuses on
raising money for cancer research.

In 2019 and 2020, the donations totaling $65,200 allowed for the purchase of a Accuri
Flow cytometer for her lab. And in the past 16 years, Horton and Cancer Sucks Inc.,
have donated more than $300,000, which has enabled Kaul to purchase several pieces
of cutting-edge equipment including the Real-Time RT-PCR system and more recently
the Nikon Eclipse Ts2R Fluorescent Microscope.

“The grant support has enabled us to make important contributions in science especially
towards the understanding of hormone-regulated inflammation that has implications
for differential disease development observed in males and females,” she said. “We
have been able to attract matching funds as well as additional grant money from state
and federal agencies to support cancer research in our lab.”

Kaul said the ultimate goal is to discover early detection liver cancer biomarkers
profiled by liver proteomics study, which is funded by the National Institutes of
Health core lab.

The ongoing financial support has wide-reaching effects beyond just Kaul’s lab.

“In addition to making novel scientific contributions through publications, we have
established science outreach programs to train future scientists. We have provided
training to students in leading molecular techniques to attract them to a career in
STEM,” she said. “We have offered research mentorships to many medical and graduate
students here at OSU-CHS as well as other high school and undergraduate students in
the community through the OKStars and Oklahoma IDeA Network of Biomedical Research
Excellence programs.”

This press release was produced by Oklahoma State University. The views expressed here are the author’s own.