If significant research is any indication of the quality of lab sales leads at life science marketing events held on Columbia University’s campus, this next story is worth reading about. Columbia University Medical Center researchers conducted a significant study that has identified a number of metabolic expression changes in the gene expression data from 22 tumor types. The analysis also points to hundreds of medications that could remove a tumor’s fuel supply or inhibit a tumor’s synthesis. The study was published in Nature Biotechnology.
Cell metabolism takes place through a network of reactions inside cells that develop nutrients like glucose to gain energy. Cancer drastically reprograms a cell’s normal metabolism, allowing for it to proliferate wildly. German biochemist Otto Warburg first observed in 1924 that cancer cells used glucose in a strange way to create energy for the cell.
“Although a list of biochemical pathways in normal cells was comprehensively mapped during the last century,” said science researcher Dennis Vitkup, associate professor of biomedical informatics at Columbia University Medical Center and the study’s lead investigator. “We still lack a complete understanding of their usage, regulation, and reprogramming in cancer.”
“Right now we have something like a static road map. We know where the streets are, but we don’t know how traffic flows through the streets and intersections,” said postdoctoral Columbia science researcher and first author of the study Jie Hu. “What researchers need is something similar to Google Traffic, which shows the flow and dynamic changes in car traffic.”
According to the Columbia University news article published on the university’s website, the paper is titled, “Heterogeneity of tumor-induced gene expression changes in the human metabolic network.” Dr. Vitkup’s team of research scientists discovered hundreds of differences between normal and cancer cells’ use of isoenzymes. This brings about the possibility of turning off cancer’s fuel and supply lines.
Columbia University Medical Center
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Science researchers conducting cancer research at Columbia University are always in need of lab equipment, which is why Biotechnology Calendar, inc. organizes annual life science marketing events at top research universities across the country to help biotechnology vendors generate lab sales leads. Columbia University recently received a $20 million gift from Philip and Cheryl Milstein for the purpose of training students in the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the biomedical science departments in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
In addition to this gift, Columbia University also receives a large amount of research funding from the NIH and NSF. In 2012, the NIH gave the university $361.1 million. The funding was distributed to a vast number of life science research projects in a variety of disciplines.
In 2012, Columbia University also received $95 million from the NSF. The 2010 NSF ranking of Columbia put the university in 13th place in the country for total R&D expenditures in life sciences, having spent a total of $555.2 million. In 2011, the NIH ranked Columbia University 16th for direct plus indirect costs in the life sciences, excluding R&D contracts and ARRA awards. The total was $309.9 million.
Given the groundbreaking research being conducted at Columbia University Medical Center and the most recent funding statistics, it’s evident that life science marketing events at Columbia University have the potential to generate a great deal of lab sales leads with busy science researchers. Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. invites all lab suppliers and biotechnology vendors to network at Columbia University at our annual Armory Track and Field Center BioResearch Product Faire™ Event, adjacent from the Columbia University Medical Center, on October 1, 2013.
Biotechnology Calendar Inc. is a full-service science research marketing and events-planning company that organizes life science marketing events at top research universities across the country. For more information on Columbia University funding statistics, click on the button below. If you’re interested in generating lab sales leads in a market closer to home, we encourage you to check out our 2013 calendar of events.