O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center Magazine Spring 2020 | Seite 30

SHANNON E. MEIER
By Curran Umphrey
Student researchers are the backbone of the 34
labs housed in the O’Neal Comprehensive Cancer
Center at UAB. These researchers take innovative
ideas and turn them into groundbreaking discoveries
that are used around the world to treat cancer.
Shannon E. Meier, a doctoral candidate at UAB,
gravitated toward cancer after testing out three different
areas of research during her student rotations. In 2016,
she decided to join the O’Neal Cancer Center in its
mission to become a national leader in cancer research.
Mentored by Rajeev Samant, Ph.D., who is a senior
scientist at the Cancer Center, Meier and her peers study
breast cancer, how it spreads and how it grows in parts
of the body where it did not originate.
Meier spends her days in the lab focusing specifically
on Wnt signaling pathways, which allow individual cells
to “communicate” with each other. She is exploring how
cutting off this cellular communication could prevent
breast cancer cells from spreading.
Shannon E. Meier
SCIENTISTS OF
TOMORROW
“My research could one day impact
someone else’s life, and while no
one person is going to cure cancer,
I’m eager to contribute my one little
grain of sand to the beach.”
Shannon E. Meier
Student Researcher, Graduate Biomedical
Sciences Doctoral Training Program,
Pathobiology & Molecular Medicine
“This was a brand new research project when I started,
so I essentially had no data on it,” Meier said. “Because
it’s been like building from the ground floor up, it’s been
a struggle, but it’s exciting and very rewarding because I
can take full ownership of this work.”
Within the nucleus, the “brain” of the cell, are nucleoli,
which are responsible for producing ribosomes.
Ribosomes make protein, and cancer cells need a lot
of protein to divide as rapidly as they do. Through her
research, Meier has learned that breast cancer cells have
more nucleoli than noncancerous cells, which means
that these cancerous cells are making more protein.
To get to the root of this issue, Meier is looking for a way
to target the nucleolus through Wnt signaling in order to
shut down protein production.
While Meier says that being one of the first to explore
this understudied area of breast cancer is motivation
in itself, her personal ties to the disease drive her daily
research even further.
“My aunt has had breast cancer twice, and she always
wants to know what we’re doing in the lab and what kind
of progress we’re making,” Meier said. “My research
could one day impact someone else’s life, and while
no one person is going to cure cancer, I’m eager to
contribute my one little grain of sand to the beach.”
28 O’NEAL COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER AT UAB