Our Highest Potential

For La Creis Kidd, Ph.D., becoming a cancer researcher was the perfect intersection of professional goals and personal mission.

Cancer has touched the UofL faculty member's family in a profound way. Her grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer in her early 50s, her grandfather had prostate cancer, her father recently developed bladder cancer and Kidd herself was diagnosed with benign breast cancer at just 20 years old.

"This high occurrence of cancer in my family may be due to genetic factors," says Kidd, who holds the Our Highest Potential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at the University of Louisville.

The endowed professorship, funded by the James Graham Brown Foundation along with matching money from the state's "Bucks for Brains" program, was created, in part, to identify more effective cancer treatments for minority populations, which suffer from disproportionately high rates of many kinds of cancers.

Overall, African Americans are more likely to die from cancer than any other racial or ethnic population, says Kidd, who earned a Ph.D. in toxicology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997 and a master's of public health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2001.

The death rate from cancer among African American males is 1.4 times higher than that among European Americans; and for females, it is 1.2 times higher.

Moreover, a 2005 American Cancer Society report reveals that African Americans are 50 to 60 percent more likely to be diagnosed with lung and prostate cancer than European Americans.

"In almost every instance, the risk of developing cancer and the risk of having inadequate medical care is higher in minority populations," notes Donald Miller, M.D., director of UofL's James Graham Brown Cancer Center.

"We have an ethical and moral responsibility to help understand the reasons for this disparity and to begin to develop measures to change that. Dr. Kidd brings a high level of commitment and expertise to our work in this area."

Kidd's research at the James Graham Brown Cancer Center focuses on the genetic and environmental determinants of prostate cancer within ethnically diverse populations.

This research focus began during Kidd's graduate studies at MIT, where she developed a strong interest in the role of nutrition in causing and preventing cancer. As a graduate student, she helped conduct studies that examined the presence of cancer-causing compounds in the browned or charred surfaces of cooked meat.

"These carcinogens can be found in meat that is grilled, broiled and pan-fried," she explains. "We found that an African American sub-population had a higher level of exposure to meat-derived carcinogens than their Asian or European counterparts."

In her quest to gain a more complete understanding of the causes of cancer, she began to explore the influence of genetic factors in susceptibility to cancer while serving as a cancer prevention post-doctorate fellow at the National Cancer Institute.

Initially, her research focused on genes involved in making meat-derived carcinogens less harmful to the body. However, after her first anniversary of mentored research at the NCI, she focused on genes that may serve as good targets for cancer diagnosis or treatment.

Since vitamin D may block prostate cancer growth, she examined the relationship between alterations in a gene involved in vitamin D absorption -- namely, the vitamin D receptor -- and prostate cancer risk among African American and European American men.

In this study, Kidd observed that African American men who had the proposed "low expression" vitamin D receptor had a 1.8-fold increase in the risk of developing prostate cancer; however, this was not the case for European American men.

Kidd hopes these findings may be useful in the identification of African American men who may benefit from cancer treatment drugs.

"Perhaps African American men diagnosed with prostate cancer whose bodies have a high ability to absorb vitamin D may benefit more from vitamin D 'look-alikes' or analogues when compared to men who absorb vitamin D less efficiently," Kidd says.

Interestingly, her work in using genetic markers to identify sub-populations that may benefit from prostate cancer-related drugs is applicable to many cancers, including lung cancer, which is quite common among Kentucky residents.

Opportunity for growth

Kidd, who joined the university in 2004, said she was attracted to UofL in part because of the school's academic environment and the opportunities it offered for growth.

"My decision to join the faculty at UofL was heavily based on the potential to add a research component to community outreach efforts, the collaborative nature of senior-level faculty members and the genuine concern about the welfare of minority faculty here at UofL," she says.

Kidd also was influenced by the school's deep commitment to establishing the James Graham Brown Cancer Center as a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The multi-year effort, which is designed to place UofL in the top echelon of cancer treatment and research facilities nationwide, has attracted dozens of new world-class scientists and secured more than $36 million in additional research funding.

"I saw an opportunity to be part of a university that was very committed to becoming an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center," she notes.
"I also saw that I could grow as an epidemiologist in the area of recruiting participants in genetic studies in partnership with the Kentucky Cancer Program, directed by Connie Sorrell, and the Louisville Metro Ambulatory Care Research Network, coordinated by Dr. Toni Miles."

There is much work to be done.

"It is my hope that I and others can identify genetic risk factors that modify one's chances of getting cancer and improve cancer treatment decisions," Kidd says. "We ultimately hope to improve the chance for survival among African Americans."

She and other researchers are in the planning stages of investigating differences in drug metabolism rates among clinic-based patients. Kidd hopes the study will help doctors make informed decisions about the type and amount of drugs they administer to their patients.

Patients whose bodies metabolize a particular drug more quickly may, for example, benefit from higher doses of medicine than patients whose bodies process the drug at a slower rate.

"My experience here at UofL has met and exceeded my expectations," says Kidd, who enjoys the encouragement of senior investigators and has already helped coordinate a cancer prevention and control seminar that features the research of in-house faculty.

"It is a very collaborative and nurturing environment."