The fight against prostate cancer has a new strategy on its side being studied in Iowa State’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Assistant Professor Molly Kozminsky, with backing from the Department of Defense (DOD), is attacking this condition and all-too-common mortality of it, with a new perspective.

One in eight males in the U.S. will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. When caught early, the survival rate is high. But when the cancer has metastasized and spread into bone marrow, survivability chances drop drastically.

Kozminsky, a Vernon Guse Faculty Fellow, and her cohorts are working to develop a laboratory platform that mimics difficult-to-study aspects of metastatic prostate cancer, with funding from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP), part of the DOD’s prostate cancer Idea Development Award.

Working to change ‘non-survivable’ to ‘survivable’

The research includes looking at biological questions that are specific to prostate cancer and the dormancy of tumor cells. These cells, called “disseminated cancer cells,” that arise from cancer in the prostate, can invade bones and then lay dormant before proliferating the cancer into an often non-survivable condition.

“What leads these cells in bone to wake up?” she asks. Bones are dynamic systems that do much more than provide skeletal support to the body. The bone matrix is both created and resorbed back into bone (breaking down of old or damaged bone and then releasing minerals into the bloodstream) in a constant process to maintain balance. But with prostate cancer, bones can become repositories for cancer cells.

Research is being done in vitro (using only laboratory equipment as opposed to conducting work inside a living organism).

“In animal models we often see this balance tipped toward more resorption of the bone matrix rather than being shifted in the direction of increased deposition as is often the case in prostate cancer,” Kozminsky says. “So we are asking if we can we replace these animal models in the lab and also take this opportunity to create a model that is more reflective of what happens in humans? We are looking to use a DNA-directed patterning technique that enables the recreation of complex cellular arrangements. Eventually, we will incorporate patient cells in the models.”

Key help from collaboration

Assisting in the research is Dr. Michael Henry, chair of the Department of Biomedical and Translational Sciences at Old Dominion University and former interim director of the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of Iowa. He is primarily a collaborator in this research, bringing insight from a different perspective.

“I come into this more from an engineering perspective,” says Kozminsky, “and he comes into this more from a biology background and also with experience in longer-term work with other traditional and animal model systems and how they are applied in therapeutic development. Bringing in views from biologists is critical to make sure we are making advancements in something that will move forward and not just live in the corner of a lab somewhere.”

Students and researchers develop skills as part of the team

Kozminsky is also receiving support from two graduate students, two undergraduates and one postdoctoral researcher.

“Graduate students are the ‘boots on the ground,’” she says. “Their presence is absolutely critical. We are asking so many questions and doing so many different things in the lab, I can’t do all of this by myself.”

There is a great deal of cross-disciplinary benefit in the lab’s assistants. Graduate student Alaleh Foroozandehfar comments, “I came into this project with an engineering background, so this is the first time I have done work in the biomedical realm. There are many valuable skills I have learned. I’m working on recapitulating bone marrow modeling that we use in the project. I immobilize tumor cells in the recapitulated bone marrow microenvironments to mimic the metastasis state in which tumor cells are active.”

Graduate student Shiva Aghaei says, “I have a background in molecular and cellular biology and have learned the engineering techniques in this lab. This is my first time working with an in vitro model, and I am currently studying the dormancy state of tumor cells – how they enter dormancy and later become reactivated. This is key to improving the survivability of this cancer and could contribute to more effective cancer therapies.

Postdoctoral researcher Aparna Krishnamurthy came to the Kozminsky lab after earning a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Iowa State. “Together with Shiva and Alaleh I am working to develop in vitro models to weave in the distinct niches, regions, that define the highly complex biological system that marrow is. Our role is to act like translators and decode how cells in the human body communicate as we look for answers to taming cancer,” she says.

“This project is also a great opportunity for undergraduates,” says Kozminsky. “All of us on the faculty are working to make connections to the bigger picture for the undergrad students. Getting a feel for the applications that are done in the lab can help them see a whole different side of chemical engineering through hands-on work.”

Kyra Martin is one of those undergraduates. She is a sophomore pursuing the College of Engineering’s new Biomedical Engineering degree and says, “I attended an event where Dr. Kozminsky made a presentation on this research. I had done breast cancer research in high school and a lot of the things she talked about I had familiarity with. I spoke to her after her presentation and was able to join her lab for this project.”

Martin, who will be participating in an internship with Boston Scientific Corporation with medical devices in the summer of 2026, stresses, “The fact that I have been able to work with different kinds of cancers and how they behave in different environments has really expanded by horizons in a biomedical sense. There are a lot of mechanical engineers in medical device work, but I will be able to go into it with a more chemically-oriented view.”

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