Heroes Foundation Empowers Ambitious Notre Dame Researcher With $25K

Katharine White, Ph.D., pursues better diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to address cancer metastasis at the Harper Cancer Research Institute in South Bend

The Heroes Foundation recently announced a $25,000 commitment to Katharine White, Ph.D., an ambitious researcher studying how intracellular pH dynamics regulate proteins, pathways and cancer cell behaviors. White is the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame and a member of the Harper Cancer Research Institute.

James Hinshaw is the Chair of the Heroes Foundation’s Board of Directors, a partner at Dentons Bingham Greenebaum in Indianapolis, and a member of the Heroes Foundation Medical Advisory Committee. This multidisciplinary committee includes board members with research experience who reviewed three candidate projects presented by the Harper Cancer Research Institute.

“They were all excellent proposals for lab projects from accomplished researchers. The committee was especially intrigued by Katharine White’s proposal’s concept of metabolic reprogramming and the potential application across multiple different cancers,” Hinshaw said.

Providing cancer research funds to world-class partners in Indiana is a key part of the Heroes Foundation’s mission: To provide meaningful support to cancer patients, education to promote cancer prevention and resources to advance research for a cure.

“Sometimes all it takes is a first step to win a war,” Hinshaw said. “The Heroes Foundation recognizes that for certain cancers or certain research studies, there are already a multitude of funding sources available. So, we look for research ideas to fund that show great promise but have not attracted widespread support — at least not yet. We feel that that is where our funds can have the greatest impact now in the war against cancer.”

White’s lab is studying the role of pH in initiating cancer and driving cancer metastasis and whether it is possible to target cancer cells with pH-lowering drugs to treat patients or even prevent cancers from forming.

“If successful, our work will give us better diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to address cancer metastasis,” she said. The $25,000 gift has given White and her team more freedom.

“Because of these funds, I have been able to conduct larger projects, fund additional undergraduate students in the lab, two of whom are first-generation college and one high school student who has worked in the lab for three years and recently received a full-ride scholarship to the University of Wisconsin. These funds allow us to be ambitious in our lab’s projects and boldly pursue our most interesting research aims.”

Katharine White explains why this is such an exciting area to study in the fight against cancer:

“As cancer develops, a normal organized tissue becomes disorganized and grows into a tumor. If left undetected or if treatment fails, cells can undergo additional changes to become metastatic where they travel to distant sites in the body. It’s this recurrent and metastatic disease that kills patients.

“Throughout this process of tumor formation and metastasis, the pH inside the cells increases by about 0.5 units. This is not a lot when you consider the pH scale goes from pH 0 of battery acid to pH 14 of lye. However, this small change in pH has a profound effect on cancer behavior. It causes cancer cells to grow too much and metastasize to distant sites in the body and makes it so they literally cannot die. All really bad things for the patient.

“But there are several things we still don’t know about pH in cancer. We don’t know whether high pH alone can cause normal cells to become cancerous. If we could prove this, doctors could use pH measurements as a way to diagnose cancer earlier and hopefully improve patient outcomes.”