{"id":153102,"date":"2024-09-05T12:43:15","date_gmt":"2024-09-05T16:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=153102"},"modified":"2025-10-23T17:07:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T21:07:20","slug":"pratt-named-a-rita-allen-scholar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2024\/09\/05\/pratt-named-a-rita-allen-scholar\/","title":{"rendered":"Pratt Named a Rita Allen Scholar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Developing a new liquid biopsy tool to track tumors<\/strong><\/h3>\n

By Patrick L. Kennedy<\/strong><\/p>\n

With her potentially revolutionary proposal for a more effective, minimally invasive method of detecting tumor activity, Assistant Professor Erica Pratt<\/a> (BME<\/a>, MSE<\/a>, CAMED<\/a>) has been named one of seven 2024 Rita Allen Foundation Scholars<\/a>, joining a prestigious group of innovative researchers in cancer, immunology, and neuroscience.<\/p>\n

A liquid biopsy expert, Pratt is focusing her research on protein kinases. These are enzymes that regulate protein expression, and they\u2019re found in trace amounts throughout the blood stream, within the cells that a tumor sheds. The kinases, therefore, hold great potential as cancer biomarkers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have the technology to isolate these circulating biomarkers, then every time a cancer patient comes in to a clinic, we can draw blood and then obtain tumor-specific information,\u201d says Pratt, who is the Moorman-Simon Interdisciplinary Career Development Professor at ENG. That data could indicate whether a tumor is metastasizing, or whether a particular treatment is working or an alternative should be tried.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe caveat,\u201d says Pratt, \u201cis that these biomarkers are extremely rare. It\u2019s a one-in-a-million event, so it\u2019s truly a needle-in-a-haystack problem, and you need really innovative technology to be able to isolate these cells and analyze them in any meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s just what Pratt aims to do with the Rita Allen Foundation funds\u2014up to $110,000 per year for three years. She is developing what would be the first probe capable of detecting circulating tumor cell kinase activity, providing patients and clinicians with consistent, up-to-date insights as a tumor evolves and responds to treatment.<\/p>\n

\"Erica
With a mission to develop liquid biopsy assays for non-invasive cancer monitoring, the Pratt Lab combines expertise in engineering, chemical biology, and oncology. Photo by Lyn Markey
<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIf you look at kinases, you get a high-level overview of information flux throughout a cell,\u201d Pratt says. \u201cWhat is a cell committing a lot of resources to? What are the pathways it\u2019s trying to activate and control? And that can inform what kind of therapies should be selected.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, since the technology can be used to evaluate treatment efficacy, it should have drug development and clinical trial applications as well.<\/p>\n

The students in Pratt\u2019s lab hail from a variety of disciplines, including biomedical engineering, chemical biology, and cell and molecular biology. \u201cThe project is inherently multidisciplinary,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re working at the interface of physical sciences and oncology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rita Allen Foundation Scholars program supports basic biomedical research in cancer, immunology, and neuroscience, in particular embracing innovative research projects with long odds but groundbreaking potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, the award is transformative,\u201d says Pratt. \u201cThis research has a lot of moving parts, a lot of high-risk elements. The application is exciting, but there is a lot of work ahead of us to get there, so having the investment from the Rita Allen Foundation, where they see the potential and are willing to help nurture and grow it, is really crucial for the type of research that we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, Pratt credits her Moorman-Simon Interdisciplinary Career Development Professorship (CDP). \u201cThe CDP has accelerated my research program and was integral to generating the foundational preliminary data used in my proposal,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In the long run, Pratt hopes the project will make a difference in the lives of cancer patients. \u201cCancer is something that affects so many people every day,\u201d she says, \u201cand as an engineer I always wanted to do something that tied to a real-life impact.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This prestigious grant will help the liquid biopsy expert and her multidisciplinary team develop a tool to track tumors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2662,"featured_media":155457,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,257,899,1224,909],"tags":[1124],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153102"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153102"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168533,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153102\/revisions\/168533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}