Sayed Daoud Editor of New Book

Cancer research focused on the study of proteins is the subject of a new book authored and edited by a Washington State University professor in pharmacy.

The 265-page book will be released in December 2007 by Humana Press of New Jersey, a leading national publisher of books and journals for medical and scientific professionals.

Pharmacy Associate Professor Sayed S. Daoud, a 20-year veteran in cancer research, was asked by Humana Press to produce the book “Cancer Proteomics: From Bench to Bedside,” which will be part of the publisher’s book series titled “Cancer Drug Discovery and Development.”

Proteomics is a branch of biotechnology that uses a multidisciplinary approach and new technology to study disease-related biomarkers in proteins. A biomarker is a biochemical presence that can indicate the progress of disease or the effects of treatment.

The book took about 20 months to complete and contains information from many outstanding scientists and clinicians from all over the world, Daoud said.

“Actually, this is the main strength of the book,” he said. “I was able to learn a lot from these contributors and without this team effort, I wouldn’t be able to disseminate this current information, which may help others succeed in applying this technology in their own practices.”

The book is divided into four parts:

  • the current technologies used in proteomics that allow for protein profiling and for the identification of druggable targets in human samples;
  • the use of proteomics in cell signaling;
  • the actual clinical applications of proteomics in cancer therapy;
  • the role of FDA in regulating the use of proteomics in cancer therapy

Daoud’s current research in cancer treatment is a combination of proteomics and genomics, which is the same biotech approach to the study of genes – multidisciplinary and with new technology.

In particular, Daoud is focused on the p53 gene, which is found to be mutated or dysfunctional in more than 50 percent of the women diagnosed with breast cancer. These patients tend to have a poor prognosis for treatment, tend to have relapses, tend not to respond well to treatment and their cancer tends to be more aggressive, Daoud says.

Other cancer researchers have discovered how to restore the p53 gene to its normal function, but Daoud and others are looking at what other genes and proteins might be negatively affected in that process.

Someday, Daoud said, science will know enough about the identity of different genes and cancers so that treatment can be tailored to each individual tumor and be more effective than the blanket approaches that exist now. This sentiment has been described in the book as “Individualization of Therapy”.

Daoud has been at WSU since 1991. He earned his Ph.D in pharmacology from the University of Louisville and did his postdoctoral training at the University of Texas Medical Center in Houston. From 1987 to 1991, he was on the faculty at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

The list price of his new book through Humana Press is $125.