ALBUQUERQUE - Former Grants resident Kristina Trujillo, PhD, of the University of New Mexico Cancer Research and Treatment Center, has been awarded a $138,000 postdocatoral grant to in hopes of understanding how tumors form and redefining how physicians treat tumors. The grant was made by the American Cancer Society.

One difference between tissue close to the tumor and truly healthy tissue is the level of an enzyme known as telomerase. Trujillo plans to use the three-year grant to study cells from the surrounding tissue with the highest telomerase expression and characterize them. She plans to determine how those cells are similar to tumors and studying whether they are predisposed to make new tumors. If that tissue is found to be at higher risk for developing tumors, Trujillo's work could have a dramatic impact on surgical guidelines for how much tissue needs to be removed to help prevent recurrence.

Studying these cells could also help scientists better understand how cancer forms - something that is still a mystery. “We can use these cells as a model for how tumors develop. This tissue still appears normal, but it has many molecular changes that are required for a tumor to form. If we find a way to detect these changes in a patient, it would be possible to eliminate the cancer before it forms,” said Trujillo.

While Trujillo's work is focused on breast cancer, she said her research could be applicable to other types of cancers, such as prostate cancer, which others in her lab are studying. Trujillo is a member of Dr. Jeffrey Griffith's lab. Griffith is the Associate Dean of the School of Medicine at UNM.

Trujillo, a native of New Mexico, grew up in Grants. She attended New Mexico State University on a track scholarship and earned her undergraduate degree in microbiology. She started working in the lab as an undergraduate and continued her research career at NMSU, where she also earned her doctorate in molecular biology. Trujillo has been out of school for two years, and has a four-year-old son, Gabriel and a five-month-old named Anthony.