A University professor has received a grant to study the link between stomach cancer and a bacterium called “Helicobacter pylori,” which could be a leading cause of stomach cancer depending on the strength of the strain.
Biology Associate Professor Karen Guillemin received the $600,000 grant from the American Cancer Society to fund a three-year research project titled “Cellular Basis of Helicobacter pylori Pathogenesis.”
H. pylori is a bacterium that can live inside the human stomach and is a known cause of stomach cancer. Guillemin said that although the majority of people with stomach cancer are infected with H. pylori, most people infected with H. pylori will not necessarily be diagnosed with cancer.
Guillemin is focusing her three-year project on identifying how the bacterium interacts with individual cells in the stomach to cause cancer.
H. pylori is the first bacterium — not virus — shown to be carcinogenic. Because it is a bacterium, H. pylori can be cured with an antibiotic. Guillemin said, however, that physicians are currently only giving antibiotics to patients with active strains of H. pylori.
Guillemin said she is hoping to identify the different strains of H. pylori, specifically which strains are more likely to cause cancer. She added that even if people are infected with H. pylori, they don’t necessarily need antibiotics because bacterium have the ability of building resistance to frequently used antibiotics.
“If we can start to understand (H. pylori), then that can be useful for clinicians to type the strains,” Guillemin said. “Certain strains are more likely to cause cancer because they produce molecules that do more damage.”
Guillemin started working on the project in September 2001, when she first came to the University. She also has taught an upper-division class titled “Bacterial Host Interactions” and will be teaching a microbiology course in the 2003-04 school year.
The grant was made possible because of a contribution to ACS from the estate of Dora Kellenberger Hall. Kara Moore, a spokeswoman for ACS, said that without the contribution from the Kellenberger Hall estate, the $600,000 would not have been given to Guillemin. Although ACS has given nearly $1 million to researchers at the University, most of that money comes from federal grants, not from personal contributions.
“It was special because the gift from the family allowed us to give her the grant,” Moore said, adding that there are currently four other researchers at the University who have received funds from ACS.
Guillemin said she is very dedicated to the project, although the grant will only provide funding through the next three years.
“It’s a lifetime project,” she said.