Investigator Highlight: Dr. Drazen Raucher
Published on Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Dr. Drazen Raucher, professor of cell and molecular biology, serves on multiple UMMC research-oriented committees as well as overseeing his own lab. He is a long-time member of the UMMC Cancer Center and Research Institute. As well as research, he’s worked with dozens of graduate students in his lab and he’s mentored college and high school students interested in medical research.
How long have you worked at UMMC and what type of research do you do?
My 20 years in biochemistry at UMMC have been spent conducting research to advance the development of targeted cancer treatments. The goal of these treatments is to spare healthy tissue while delivering potent doses of highly effective, anti-tumor drugs directly to tumor cells. As many physiological barriers can impede targeted drug delivery, chemotherapy has historically exacted a steep toll on patients’ overall wellbeing. To help reduce this burden, my lab has pioneered approaches aimed at curtailing the impact of chemotherapy on healthy cells. One of our main contributions has been the design and synthesis of thermally targeted biopolymer drug carriers. These carriers, based on elastin-like peptides, are designed to help penetrate tumor cells, while sparing healthy tissue. In our lab we do everything from the initial design and synthesis of these novel drug carriers to their preclinical testing.
Would you describe your most recent research and/or publications?
Systemic drug delivery is well known for its harmful impact on normal cells and tissues. To help address this serious problem, we have continuously sought to develop alternative approaches that could safeguard healthy tissue, while eliminating tumors. One recent innovation has been our design and pilot use of injectable hydrogels. These hydrogels, positioned by injection in the site of an excised tumor, are designed to provide a sustained release of chemotherapeutics at target tumor sites. In a recent publication, we reported on a locally applied, injectable drug delivery system, based on elastin-like polypeptide (ELP) hydrogels. This delivery system could support more effective brain cancer treatment by releasing anti-cancer drugs over time into regions where tumor cells might remain after surgical tumor removal. Our research on this approach sought to evaluate the biomechanical properties of ELP hydrogels, to characterize their ability to release drugs over time, and to investigate the extent to which drug laden ELP hydrogels could reduce, or even eliminate, brain tumor cell proliferation, while sparing healthy cells.
How does your recent research and/or publications relate to your overall research within cancer?
Our overall goal is to develop a targeted approach for maximizing drug delivery within tumors, so as to increase their intended effectiveness, while reducing toxicity to normal tissue. Towards this goal, we have developed several drug delivery systems for specific tumors (such as breast, prostate, and lung) based on novel, site-specific, genetically engineered ELP biopolymers that can be thermally targeted to guide drug delivery. We have successfully tested this approach to tumor targeting in several preclinical models of pancreatic and breast cancer. However, our recent research has exploited the same thermally responsive polymers to generate the injectable biocompatible hydrogels discussed above. If successful, our studies will yield a novel biomaterial that can be targeted to deliver therapeutics to hard-to-reach tumors, such as those in the brain. Our work also provides a foundation for the development of other novel, hydrogel-based therapies, especially those that can be help treat inoperable tumors and other localized disease.
What inspired your most recent research and/or publications?
Cancer is a daunting disease, but cures have come and will come. Our most recent research, focused on glioblastoma (GBM), the most common and aggressive brain tumor, sets it sights upon one of the least curable cancers. Chemotherapies are hampered from reaching these tumors by the blood-brain barrier, GBM has a strong tendency to disseminate intracranially, and these tumors have an inherent resistance to radiation and chemotherapy. At present, GBM treatment strategies offer patients a median survival time of 15 months and a 5-year survival of ~5% after initial diagnosis – an exceedingly short window that requires an almost simultaneous mobilizing for treatment and preparing for end-of-life. All of us in cancer research work to advance the development of new approaches that more effectively treat tumors, and more decisively improve length and quality of life. Research successes do not aspire to be confined to the lab. Those that reach the cancer clinic, and its patients are priceless.
What advice can you give medical students and/or high-school students who are interested in pursuing a career in research?
Research has a glamorous sheen, but its demands are real, constant, and must be met. Thus, those aspiring to a research career must first understand their goals – in short, ask yourself why you would like to do research. The answer to this first question will help you to decide what kind of research you want to do. Once you have a topic or area of research determined, actively seek out a mentor and a lab. Research is often depicted with an array of instruments or a panel of equations, but a well-designed research project usually begins with reading and progresses to a research question. Thus, read as much as possible: the proverbial devil is in the details, so you need more than just the big picture of your research project. To plan your work, try to get a better sense of the experimental details that may pose problems. Reach out with confidence and ask questions, not only of your mentor, but of other experienced researchers and colleagues, to help consider how to address likely problems, as well as manage unanticipated ones. Research takes time, so be persistent and never give up, even when you don't get positive results. By engaging your research and its questions, you will of course become better at understanding traditional and novel approaches and at creatively applying problem solving skills to address new challenges. As important, however, research confers a confidence that can open the way to new ideas and opinions, broaden insights, and establish connections and collaborations with others. If you want a career that allows you to simultaneously answer one question and encounter another one, you can do no better than research.