UAMS Researcher Leads Team on Hunt for Cancer’s Killer Gene

Somewhere in every multiple myeloma patient is a gene waiting to pull its deadly trigger.

When it does, it snuffs out a critical molecule that prevents cell growth, so the tumor grows out of control — and the patient dies. 

Now imagine that UAMS researchers have found this terrible gene and may even know a way to stop it. Dr. John Shaughnessy is leading a team at the UAMS Myeloma Institute for Research and Therapy that is on the verge of announcing just that.
 
“We think we’ve found the gene that is the culprit,” Shaughnessy said.
 
The potential breakthrough improves the chances of significantly advancing treatment strategies and therapies. As for a cure, he said, “We continue to hope.” 

The pioneering research that led to this point began in 1999 with the opening of the Donna and Donald Lambert Laboratory of Myeloma Genetics. UAMS’ international reputation for treating multiple myeloma has provided a steady stream of patients, which for scientists means the ability to produce statistically valid research. 

The more than 30-year war on cancer has revealed that malignancies arise from mutations in genes that control cell growth. When the myeloma laboratory opened, all 25,000 human genes were potential culprits. Within a few years the list was narrowed to 70. 

Shaughnessy’s team today is focused on a single gene: CKS1B. “We’ve been working the last year and a half trying to prove that this is the gene that pulls the trigger,” he said. 

If he is right, new technology is emerging to subdue the activity of genes or their proteins. “New methods on the horizon either stop the gene from making copies of itself or stop the activity of the protein that the gene produces,” he explained. “We have proven in the laboratory that if we inactivate this gene we can stop myeloma cell growth.”

Multiple myeloma patients may not be the only cancer patients to benefit from UAMS’ research. The gene is on a tiny region of the largest human chromosome that gets “amplified” in many other aggressive forms of cancer, including breast, ovarian, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, colon, oral, gastric and others, Shaughnessy said. “This might be associated with aggressiveness in many cancers.”