Biology professor's research may help unravel mysteries of cancer

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Biologist Wouter Hoff describes his subject matter as “little ropey things.”

The ropey things are protein molecules, and Hoff explores how their shape changes. The studies are more than an academic assignment for the associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Oklahoma State University.

Hoff’s research may hold the key to various diseases, including cancer.

Individual molecules must be perfectly formed to keep the body alive. Hoff takes an in-depth look at what happens when they aren’t perfect. His dedication to the deformed strings of amino acids — found in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases — recently captured the attention of the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology.

The center selected 30 health research projects to receive $4 million over three years. Hoff will use his $135,000 award to investigate how deformations in individual protein molecules help the cell’s internal communication processes.

The correct functioning of the proteins is essential to human life. Hoff’s protein-folding experiments explore individual molecular paths in signaling proteins. When signaling pathways go awry, a range of diseases can result, including cancer.

Hoff and his students spend hours in a lab tucked away on the fourth floor of Life Sciences East, a historic classroom building built in the 1930s. They peer into Petri dishes and hunker over microscopes and spectrophotometers — instruments that determine the intensity of various wavelengths in a spectrum of light.

The biologists look at squirmy little things most of us can’t see, much less imagine. It’s minute work with significant impacts.

The Biophysical Society calls the manipulation of single molecules “perhaps the most exciting development in biophysical technique in recent times.”

“Single molecular science, particularly single-molecule manipulation, is developing into a major industry,” Hoff said.

The field remains largely untapped in Oklahoma, Hoff said. He intends to change that.