Graduate students and post-doctorate students working in the Iowa State University Buss Lab helped in the discovery of a fat that is attached to a potential cancer-causing protein called Ras.

Janice Buss, an associate professor at ISU in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, said “bad Ras” has been found in 98 percent of human cancer patients.

“The Ras protein is the most intimately associated protein with human malignancy of any of the proteins identified,” Buss said.

Ras acts as a switch in the pathway of cell growth. Ras works on normal cells as well as malignant cells, Buss said.

The Ras protein will get stuck in the on position if a cell is assaulted by a carcinogen, Buss said.

“It will send a continuous signal to the cell to grow,” Buss said. “It doesn’t take very many cell divisions for the cell to become malignant.”

The Ras protein is held on the inside of the cell membrane by a fat or lipid called an isoprenoid, which Buss and her students discovered along with researchers at a lab in Berkeley and in London.

The name of the lipid Buss and her students uncovered is farnesyl transferase. Recently, Buss has been testing out a new cancer drug called BZA-5B on nerve and blood cells in her lab. Buss said BZA-5B inhibits the activity of farnesyl transferase.

“BZA-5B targets the enzyme that glues the isoprenoid onto Ras,” Buss said.

Buss also said drug companies appear to be very interested in BZA-5B and other farnesyl transferase inhibitors (FTase inhibitors) .

“Virtually every major drug company in the United States and perhaps the world has a team working on these drugs,” Buss said.

Buss said on an academic level the FTase inhibitors are “tools for the basic understanding of cell mechanic and pathways.”

Buss said scientists are hoping to get the isoprenoid attached to the Ras protein jammed so it won’t have time to create a malignant cell.

Scientists are concerned that FTase inhibitors could alter normal cells, but Buss said researchers are finding “stronger and better drugs” that will avoid normal cells.

Buss was careful in saying that she and her students are only testing the drugs on cells at ISU. They are not out to find a cure for cancer, she said.

“The drug companies are going to do that,” Buss said.

However, Buss did say that it is wonderful to be a part of a discovery that impacts human lives.

“It’s wonderful to feel I made a contribution to this,” Buss said.