Chemokines, Cancer Metastasis and Drug Discovery Efforts by Chris Veldkamp

Chris Veldkamp, from UW-Whitewater, will be giving a talk entitled “Chemokines, Cancer Metastasis and Drug Discovery Efforts.”

Abstract

Chemokines, or chemoattractant cytokines, are important signaling molecules that
regulate trafficking of immune cells during homeostatic processes or during a response
to infection or inflammation. Chemokines are also involved in numerous disease
states. The chemokine CCL21 targets metastatic cancer cells to the lymph nodes, and
the presence of metastases in sentinel lymph nodes is used to gauge the severity of
numerous cancers. The solution structure of CCL21 and initial drug discovery efforts
will be described.