Lien
Laboratory

Diet, Metabolism and Cancer

Cancer cells have voracious appetites for nutrients and energy, which they use to fuel their uncontrolled growth and invade healthy tissue. Since diet and nutrition are major determinants of which nutrients are supplied to cancer cells, how diet affects cancer progression is an important question for many cancer patients. While there is no shortage of proposed “anti-cancer diets” in our popular culture, our scientific understanding of this question is limited, highlighting the need for systematic analyses of how different diets alter cancer progression and therapy responses.

By using cancer models together with mass spectrometry, molecular biology and genetic approaches, the Lien Lab assesses how diet-mediated changes to nutrient availability in the tumor microenvironment affect tumor metabolism, progression and responses to therapy. These efforts aim to uncover how variations in a person’s diet may influence tumor growth and metabolism with the goal of translating these findings into actionable strategies for improving cancer treatment and response.

To achieve this goal, the Lien Lab pursues three lines of research:

• Profiling how different diets alter tumor growth and metabolism
• Exploring how metabolic pathways are regulated in response to diet-induced changes to nutrient levels in the tumor microenvironment, with a particular focus on lipid metabolism pathways
• Identifying strategies for using dietary interventions to enhance the efficacies of standard-of-care and emerging cancer therapies