Skip to main content
Headshot of Blake Rushing.
UNC Lineberger’s Blake Rushing, PhD.

UNC Lineberger’s Blake Rushing, PhD, was awarded a five-year, $3.9 million National Cancer Institute grant to support the development of the Human Cancer Metabolome Atlas. The project aims to map the complex metabolic processes that drive cancer’s progression and resistance to treatment.

Rushing said the metabolic heterogeneity of tumors is poorly understood. More information is needed to identify the metabolic features of tumors related to aggressiveness, tissue type and patient demographics. The goal of the Human Cancer Metabolome Atlas is to catalog how cancer cells alter their metabolism to survive and thrive. This detailed metabolic profile of various cancers will help researchers identify new targets for therapies and improve the understanding of cancer biology.

“This goal of this research is to undertake a large-scale, pan-cancer metabolomics analysis and then generate a publicly available resource that all cancer researchers can use to study the landscape of tumor metabolism,” said Rushing, assistant professor of Nutrition and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine. “Cancer metabolism has gained tremendous traction as a source of potential therapeutic targets. The Human Cancer Metabolome Atlas will help to identify these targets, the subpopulations of individuals who would best respond to these approaches, and potentially lead to more effective treatments and ultimately improve outcomes for individuals with cancer.”

The core of the project lies in understanding how cancer cells alter their metabolism to support their rapid growth and survival. Previous research has shown there can be significant metabolic diversity among tumors, even within the same diagnosis.

“Metabolic reprogramming is one of the oldest observed characteristics of cancer. These changes in metabolism help cancers start, grow, develop drug resistance, and evade the immune system,” Rushing said. “By advancing our understanding of these metabolic alterations, we can guide the development of novel therapeutics and investigate new biomarkers for detecting and determining the severity of the cancer.”

The Human Cancer Metabolome Atlas will be made available on the National Metabolomics Data Repository (also known as Metabolomics Workbench), a resource sponsored by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund. Rushing said the repository has many integrated features, tools and tutorials that will allow for full exploration of the data by researchers with varying metabolomics experience.