2014 Kalenian award winner Sarah Hernandez credits the National Science Foundation IGERT fellowship she received in 2012 for sparking connections between a biomarker and commercial potential. The Kalenian Award—named for the late Aram Kalenian ’33, an inventor—evaluates the novelty of a competitor’s concept; its potential in the commercial market; how a business plan could evolve from the idea; and the likelihood of its success. With the foundations of the research already in place, Hernandez and Prof. Dominko applied for the award, looking at their lab findings from a different angle and incorporating them into a plan for commercialization.
Their discovery of an enzyme that appears to be involved in helping stem-like cells—or cancer cells that have characteristics like normal stem cells—stay alive and continue dividing. “Sarah made a connection,” says Dominko of the enzyme discovery. “She speculated that the new enzyme could also be present, at the very early stages of cancer formation, helping those cells stay alive and divide. If so, then a blood test to check for this biomarker could become an important early diagnostic tool.” Their research has a revolutionary potential to develop screens and treatments for a disease that patients have yet to develop. “We have termed this change in phenotype ‘induced regeneration competence’, or iRC,”says Hernandez. Checking for the presence of the enzyme could potentially take the place of colonoscopies as a diagnostic procedure for cancer, she says, and change preventive medicine.