By Jerry Grillo

Some cancers are stubbornly resistant to the drugs designed to kill them, and Ahmet Coskun wants to know why. So, the Georgia Tech biomedical engineer and his research team has developed a precise molecular tool to help clear up the mystery. 

Their graph-based super-resolution protein-protein interaction (GSR-PPI) technique creates a detailed, three-dimensional map of protein interactions within single cells. And it could lead to a better understanding and treatment of drug-resistant cancers.

Coskun will share the results of their work with the rest of the biomedical engineering world this week. As one of this year’s 12 Young Innovators of Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE), he’s been invited to present a paper about his research on Friday, Oct. 25, at the 2024 Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Annual Meeting in Baltimore.

“Cancer treatments fail in many individuals and pinpointing what goes on at the single cell level is paramount,” said Coskun, assistant professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, where he holds the Bernie Marcus Early Career Professorship.

He noted that while sequencing and molecular imaging have shed light on the molecules associated with disease, there is no definitive test available to decode the communication between two interacting molecules that lead to drug resistance.

“At BMES we’ll showcase a novel direction that creates a high-definition view of lung cancers in individual cells using a graphical representation of molecular wiring diagrams,” he said. 

Current methods don’t adequately capture the detailed spatial interactions of proteins in cells, which is crucial for understanding drug resistance. Coskun’s team used single-cell spatial proximity ligation assays and advanced microscopy to examine protein interactions in lung cancer cells treated with the drug Osimertinib. Deep learning models analyzed these images to classify the drug treatment states of the cells.

GSR-PPI significantly outperformed the traditional methods in predicting how cells respond to the drug. It classified how drugs performed in both cancer cells and human lung tissues with high accuracy and differentiated between single and combination drug therapies. 

“Basically, it’s like watching a 4k movie of cancer,” said Coskun, the first person from Georgia Tech to receive the Young Innovator honor from CMBE, a leading research journal, in more than a decade.

“Getting acknowledged by peers and mentors is an affirming feeling,” he said. “Our curiosity driven projects, and their translational impacts are being recognized. meets expectations. It’s a sign of my group’s passion to take chances and try new thin