Collagen may do more than just get rid of wrinkles – it may help cure cancer.
Kasha Slowinska, a Cal State Long Beach associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has found through research that cancer drug delivery can be conducted through collagen. She will present her research on Thursday in the Chartroom restaurant on campus, hosted by the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
The colloquium will discuss how cancer treatment drugs can be delivered to a specific place in the body and treat certain cells more efficiently through the use of collagen peptides, according to Slowinska.
Slowinska received a four-year $433,500 grant for her research from the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences.
During the event, Slowinska will also explain how to distinguish healthy cells from cancer cells, which would help patients to avoid the side effects of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is not good for the body, according to Slowinska, because it tends to attack both healthy cells and cancerous cells. She said cancer cells are like healthy cells that just malfunction.
“It’s difficult to distinguish them from the rest of the cells, which means when you take the drug … it will attack the same cells that are healthy as the cells which are sick,” Slowinska said.
Slowinska said her presentation will be geared toward the underlying causes of cancer and that it could be beneficial all students, not just those studying science.
“[It’s] a different way to approach the problem of drug delivery and how we can solve it knowing certain information from biology and chemistry, and statistics and engineering,” she said.
A reception will start for the event at 6:30 p.m., followed by Slowinska’s presentation, “And You Thought Collagen was Just for Smoothing Wrinkles,” at 7 p.m.
The colloquium is free and open to the public, but space is limited and reservations are required. To RSVP, visit beach-chemistry.com.
