Presenter: Isabella McGowen
Authors: Isabella McGowen
Faculty Advisor: Jason Kenealey
Institution: Brigham Young University
Cancer remains the second leading cause of death in the United States. Cancer cells exhibit what is known as the Warburg effect, a shift in glucose metabolism away from oxidative phosphorylation and towards glycolysis. The Warburg effect confers cancer cells with drug resistance by several mechanisms, making the Warburg effect a desirable target of cancer treatment. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) measures the heat absorbed or released as one solution that is held in a syringe is titrated into another solution that sits in a sample cell. ITC is commonly used to measure the thermodynamics and kinetics of binding. ITC has been applied to the study of enzyme kinetics, enzyme and inhibitor interactions, and the formation of biomolecular complexes. Here, it is proposed that ITC can measure cancer cell metabolism and, using this metabolic data, can determine the ability of anti-cancer drugs to disrupt the Warburg effect and induce cell death. The trial of cancer drugs in vitro is essential to the ultimate treatment of cancer in humans. ITC may be a useful method for measuring cell metabolism and viability, especially applied to treatment of the Warburg effect in cancer cells.