A glimpse into 22 years of research with Ahmed Chadli, PhD

Ahmed Chadli, PhD, associate professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Medical College of Georgia and the Georgia Cancer Center, focuses his research on understanding the biological and molecular science behind breast cancer in hopes of discovering new, effective treatments. 

“We focus on breast cancer as a model system to understand the biology of cancer, specifically breast cancer, but also to develop the drugs to target triple-negative breast cancer, which is really the most aggressive cancer,” said Chadli. 

One of the overarching goals of Chadli’s research is to develop target therapy for breast cancer using pathways regulated by molecular chaperones, which are proteins that help with proper biological functioning and can be activated by stress.

“When I was doing my PhD at Universite De Paris Nord Ver S, we intensified a protein that has some similarity with heat shock protein 90, which plays a significant role in multiple cellular processes and is how I became interested in this,” said Chadli.

Chadli is originally from Morocco and earned his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Mohammad V University in Rabat. 

In his graduate studies for his PhD, he mainly studied glycoproteins (a type of molecule) and lectins (a type of protein) in the human brain. 

“We were, at the time, trying to understand how these lectins, which are proteins that bind sugar, work in the human brain and what their function is,” said Chadli. “We were using the human brain to try to identify what we call ligands or proteins and how they are modulating the signaling or the brain tumors in brain cells. So, in doing that, we identified this protein that is related to 90.” 

Chadli came to the Georgia Cancer Center just after his post-doctoral fellowship because of work being done that was very similar to his research. He has now been at the GCC for 15 years.

“It is a great opportunity because we have a lot of great colleagues and great support in terms of core facilities and staff,” he said. “There are all these great things that we have here at Augusta University, but being around phenomenal faculty that share your ideas with you is a great thing we have here at the Georgia Cancer Center.” 

According to the American Cancer Association, breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women because of how it metastasizes. 

Chadli and his colleagues are still working on molecular chaperones and breast cancer, specifically triple-negative breast cancer. 

“We do two aspects of research in the lab, one being to develop novel inhibitors for molecular chaperones,” said Chadli. “That’s our drug discovery line of research where we screen for small molecules we don’t see. The other aspect is to develop novel therapeutic targets. What we mean by that is trying to identify new molecules that we can target with small-molecule inhibitors to kill cancer. That’s one of the projects that has just been funded by the National Institutes of Health.”

“What the NIH loved about our project is the novel immunotherapeutic target to treat breast cancer, specifically the triple-negative breast cancer. We hope by inhibiting this protein, we can activate the immune system to kill cancers.” 

Chadli finds it rewarding when he feels he has understood a certain aspect of research that will allow the development of a drug or treatment for patients. 

“We can see that effort and that focus of time starts to pay off and start to give some results that can hopefully translate into treatment for patients, if not immediately, in the future.” 

To learn more about Chadli’s research, visit his research lab’s page.