The Mechanism of Myc Function in Cell Proliferation and Cancer

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One in three people will have cancer during their lifetime. I investigate how cancer arises, because to treat it effectively, it is critical to know how we get the disease. A protein called Myc plays a prominent role in many human cancers. My research asks, How does Myc increase our risk of cancer? Over 20 years ago Myc was found to be a transcription factor, which means that it transcribes the DNA that codes for particular genes into messages. Those messages code for the synthesis of proteins that make up the cell. We want to know which genes Myc transcribes to drive cancer. Myc is actually a rather weak transcription factor, and I therefore started to search for other functions that Myc might have. This led me to discover that Myc regulates genes twice - not only does it increase the amount of message produced, it also increases the amount of protein produced from each message. This finding means that we have missed many of the significant genes that Myc activates. I want to find the novel Myc-activated genes and discover what they do in cancer cells. These genes will be new targets for cancer therapies.