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BOZEMAN - Research conducted at Montana State University last summer has implications for cancer treatment and has been published in a recent issue of the Journal of Cell Science.

The team that published its findings included two undergraduate students, Dana van der Heide and Kristin Comstock.

Ed Schmidt, the leader of the project in MSU's Department of Veterinary Molecular Biology said that it's unusual for undergraduates to co-author articles that run in major scientific journals.

"I'm thrilled about it," van der Heide said. "It's something that I hadn't even thought about as a possibility when I was starting research last summer."

"It's awesome. Not very many people get that experience. To be published after 10 weeks is incredible." Comstock added.

Schmidt told us that the Journal of Cell Science was their first choice for publication, and that the editing done was minimal.

The Journal of Cell Science is one of the top three or four journals in cell biology, Schmidt said. The researchers submitted there first because even though they studied cells in mouse livers, their work has broad implications for cells in other mammals.

In order for any cell to divide, it has to make copies of its entire DNA, Schmidt explained. That process is complicated and requires an enzyme called ribonucleotide reductase. It also requires high-energy electrons to run the reaction.

Scientists have been able to find the source of these electrons in all life forms except for animals. But the MSU researchers found an electron delivery route in the mice they developed for their study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The discovery has implications for cancer treatment, because some cancer drugs block those electron pathways, Schmidt said. Blocking an electron transport pathway can stop cancer cells from dividing.

However, scientists now see that there are robust alternative pathways that might also need to be dealt with to achieve an effective block. The MSU study may lead to future studies looking for better combinations of cancer drugs, Schmidt said.

Other members of the research team were 2007 Nobel Prize winner Mario Capecchi from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Utah; MaryClare Rollins, Carla Weisend and Elena Suvorova in the Department of Veterinary Molecular Biology at MSU; Jean Kundert in MSU's Animal Resources Center; and Gary Merrill at Oregon State University.

The group also benefited from experiments set up by a former postdoctoral scientist, Elena Suvorova, before leaving MSU.