A resident in the Wayne State University School of Medicine's Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery has won a competitive grant for a study that may lead to new types of chemotherapy to treat throat cancer.

Priyanka Shah, M.D., received a $10,000 Resident Research Award from the American Academy of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery Foundation for her study, "Role of Disulfiram in oxidative stress and OSCC xenograft burden."

"I feel grateful that the work I want to conduct and pursue was deemed important enough to be funded," Dr. Shah, a 2012 graduate of the WSU School of Medicine, said of her first independent research grant. "I am also encouraged to continue working on research that I feel passionate about."

Now in her third year of residency, Dr. Shah explained that for several years physicians have used the same chemotherapeutic agents to treat head and neck cancers. Many cancers, including oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas -- a cancer that begins in the middle part of the throat -- are characterized by increased unfolded protein response, or UPR. This signals what researchers think is a process thought to accommodate survival and growth of tumors. Dr. Shah hypothesizes that small-molecule enforcement of UPR signaling "might overwhelm its adaptive capacity and selectively kill" tumor cells without attacking surrounding healthy cells.

"We are testing one molecule to see if it can activate this response and reduce tumor burden in mice, and working on other small nuances to this theory," she said. "The outcomes could mean a potential new class of chemotherapeutic agents in cancer treatment."

Oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas can affect the soft palate and the tongue, in addition to the walls of the throat.