Researcher aims to crack cell’s lactic acid enigma

An international multi-million dollar grant will support a University of Queensland researchers attempts crack a 90-year old mystery around the detailed biology of cancer cells.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF) Laureate Research Grant will provide $AUD8.6 million over seven years for Professor Lars Nielsen, from UQs Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, to develop complex computational models of cell metabolism.

The research aims to understand why cancer cells and other fast-growing cells produce lactate. This could lead to better and cheaper cancer therapies.

UQ Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Peter Hj said the award would allow Professor Nielson to bring together a team of researchers at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability in Copenhagen.

This fellowship is granted to outstanding scientists undertaking groundbreaking biomedicine and biotechnology research, and is one of only two such competitive grants awarded worldwide each year Professor Hj said.

It will allow Professor Nielsen to extend theinfluence of his work, which potentially will benefitpeople globally, by advancing knowledge of cancer cell development.

Professor Nielsen hopes to build a detailed model of how cancer cells and other fast-growing cells produce lactic acid, an observation first made by German biochemist Otto Warburg in 1924.

Ultimately we are trying to understand the molecular and metabolic differences between cancer cells and healthy cells, Professor Nielsen said.

The same principles of protein expression and enzyme mechanism apply to non-growing cells, such as fat and liver cells, and our model may have even greater application to metabolic diseases, such as diabetes.

Professor Nielsens work in modelling complex biological systems has been applied to systems as diverse as bacteria, baker's yeast, sugarcane and insects.

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Researcher aims to crack cell's lactic acid enigma