South Dakota Mines searches for new ways to fight cancer

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - Everyone knows someone who has been impacted by cancer but Dr. Congzhou Wang and his team at the South Dakota Mines are trying to change that, starting with breast cancer.

South Dakota Mines received a grant from the National Cancer Institute to assist with cancer research. Only about 10% of proposals sent to the Institute for funding are approved and the South Dakota Mines department of nano-science and biomedical engineering fit in that 10% with their groundbreaking innovation on reversing breast cancer.

“The goal is like I said is to use nano-material to change the biology of the cancer cell to make them more sensitive to the chemotherapy to make it more effective for the chemotherapy drugs and to also stop the migration of the cancer especially the breast cancer,” said Wang, an assistant professor at the school.

Part of the grant involves using undergraduate students to help with research.

“I think it’s really cool. I think this is some pretty groundbreaking type research and I’m really excited and lucky to be a part of it,” said Katherine Ballard, a junior with a biomedical engineering major.

“We have students from different backgrounds, we have a biology student, a biology background, we have biomedical engineering student material students so all the students can bring different knowledge or different angles to the project they can contribute to this kind of what we call interdisciplinary project,” said Wang.

Wang and his team will spend the next three years working on this research and eventually use the approach on other cancers such as prostate and skin cancers.

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