Shulin Li, an associate professor in the Vet School’s Department of Comparative Biomedical Sciences, will put the school’s new cancer research unit to use by conducting cancer research focusing on gene therapy.
The primary focus of the research is a combination of two procedures that shrink tumors, electroporation gene chemotherapy and cytokine gene therapy.
In electroporation, the “tumor killer” gene, or Interleukin-12, is injected into an animal’s cancerous tumor while an electrical pulse is applied for about one second.
Electroporation is repeated every 10 days until the tumor is gone. Then the second procedure, cytokine gene therapy, begins.
Cytokine gene therapy helps the body remember the type of cancer it had and vaccinates the animal from developing that form of cancer again.
Li has proven the effectiveness of the procedure through experiments performed on mice.
The elimination of tumors takes two to four weeks in mice. Sometimes tumors can be eradicated in just three treatments, Li said.
Although Li has two patents pending for the electroporation procedure that sends the Interleukin-12 gene into a tumor, about 20 other labs in the United States are researching the same process.
Li recently hired a graduate student, Sajida Begum, and a research associate, Francesca Mellieon, to assist with his research. Li said he hopes to develop a research program for viral gene therapy sometime in the future while collaborating with other LSU faculty.
Li said he is excited to be at LSU because he is ready to treat bigger animals with the electro-gene therapy.
Li, a native of China, came to the United States in 1989. He attended Washington State University, where he obtained a Ph.D. in biological science. He then went to the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas to begin his gene therapy research.