NDSU RESEARCHERS take new approach in cancer fight

Vicky Westra rocks gently in her chair as a steady buzz cuts through the silence. Buzz, click. Buzz, click. Buzz, click. It goes on and on for hours, turning into white noise as conversations turn to life, death, hockey, family and cancer.

A tube is connected to Westra’s chest. An intravenous pump slowly drips chemotherapy drugs into her system. Buzz, click. Buzz, click. Buzz, click. If you met her anywhere else — at her son’s hockey game, at a restaurant, at the park — nothing in her demeanor, bright personality or wide smile would suggest anything is wrong. A slight crack and softness in her voice is the only indication of her struggle.

Westra has stage 4 breast cancer. There is no stage 5. Her cancer has aggressively spread to her spine and liver. But she’s survived six years after her initial diagnosis, getting treatment, living, going to her sons’ hockey games, smiling, writing a blog, connecting with her family and friends. She’s unsure of what the future holds, or how much of it remains. But she is hopeful.

She’s hopeful the chemicals coursing through her body will knock down the cancer day-by-day. Hopeful her hair will grow back long and thick. Hopeful for more hockey, more stress-free days with her husband and boys and more chances to tell her story. She’s hopeful for a miracle.

What if that miracle is beginning to take shape?

Kalpana Katti wouldn’t call the project she leads a miracle. But it could be for patients like Westra. Katti and her colleagues at NDSU are scientists — chemists, engineers, pharmaceutical researchers. They work each day in nondescript labs, designing experiments, testing ideas, searching for a breakthrough.

They are collaborating to significantly reduce testing time and costs for new cancer treatments, to develop new cancer drugs and drug delivery systems, accelerate patient-specific, targeted treatments and to ultimately cure breast and prostate cancer.

The Project

Katti shifts in her chair and ponders the question, “Has your life been affected by cancer?”

“I think cancer touches everyone’s life,” she says. “My mother was diagnosed with cancer when I was in graduate school. I think every member of this project has been affected by cancer on some level. We all know someone who has battled the disease.”

There are more than 1.6 million new cancer cases each year. One in eight women will develop breast cancer. One in seven men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. And breast and prostate cancers are the most likely spread to a patient’s bones, making treatment difficult.

That’s where Katti’s project comes in. She helped pioneer a way to use clay to generate material that closely resembles human bone. That innovation will be used as the foundation of the NDSU Center for Engineered Cancer Test Beds. The center is part of the university’s Grand Challenge Initiative, which focuses NDSU’s research expertise and resources on solving some of the world’s most complex problems.

The center, slated to begin work this year, includes some of NDSU’s top researchers. Scientists Kalpana Katti, Dinesh Katti and Brashir Khoda from the College of Engineering, Sanku Malik from the College of Health Professions, Mukund Sibi, John Wilkinson and Greg Cook from the College of Science and Mathematics, Rajani Pillai from the College of Business, and Elizabeth Crawford from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences will develop ways to build the test beds, manufacture drug delivery systems, market the innovations and gauge reactions of patients and the medical community.

Scientists will coax bone from clay, add cancer cells, create cancer tumors and test new drugs. They’ll also study how the cancer spreads to bone, looking for ways to stop the process or, better yet, wipe out the cancer completely.

Katti and the team are eager to begin.

The Team

Kalpana Katti, University distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering

AKM Khoda, Assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering

Sanku Mallik, Professor of pharmaceutical sciences

John Wilkinson, Assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry

Mukund Sibi, Professor of chemistry and biochemistry

Rajani Pillai, Professor of management and marketing

Gregory Cook, Professor of chemistry and biochemistry

Dinesh Katti, Jordan A. Engberg Presidential professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering

Elizabeth Crawford, Associate professor of communication