Engineering new approaches to cancer research

Deirdre Meldrum, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, is a key member of a team leading a new Arizona State University research center that will embark on a novel approach to understanding and treating cancer.

Meldrum directs the Center for Ecogenomics at ASU’s Biodesign Institute. The center will play a role in work for the new Center for Convergence of Physical Science and Cancer Biology at ASU.

It’s one of 12 Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers being supported by the National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health, to pursue development of new methods of arresting tumor growth and metastasis in the fight against cancer.

Research at the Center for Ecogenomic focuses in part on the study of the fundamental mechanisms governing the birth, growth and decline of human cells with the aim of better understanding and finding ways to combat the most widespread diseases and other threats to human health.

ASU’s new cancer research center will use technology developed in Meldrum’s ecogenomics lab, specifically a medical imaging technology called cell CT. Pioneered by researcher Roger Johnson and Alan Nelson, it enables true three-dimensional computed tomography imaging of individual cancer cells.

For more information visit: http://asunews.asu.edu/20091026_ASUcancer