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IGERT-Lifechips student research report from Trisha Westerhof
Achievement/Results
NSF Funded IGERT-Lifechips program at the University of California, Irvine presents research project from a Lifechips student, Trisha Westerhof, from the department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. Trisha’s research is an interdisciplinary research because her lab, lead by Dr. Ed Nelson who is a Co-PI for Lifechips program, is collaborating with the Li/Bachman lab, lead by Professor G.P.Li and Mark Bachman, in using Micropallet Array (MPA) technology device in the context of cancer biology.
Trisha’s research discusses the increasing appreciation of 1) tumor genetic and cellular heterogeneity, 2) the recent descriptions of cancer stem, endothelial progenitor, and myoepithelial cells, among others, and 3) disparate responses to treatment even for histologically similar tumors that raise fundamental questions as to the relative contributions of various tumor cellular subsets to the biological behavior of a tumor.
The cancer stem cell (CSC) model is being tested and refined, but many important biological questions remain unanswered, due in part to the challenges of identifying, recovering, and studying unperturbed viable primary tumor cells such as CSCs. Appropriate technology permitting the prospective characterization of discrete tumor cellular elements and recovery of selected viable cells from a tumor have yet to be developed. Through the collaboration between two labs, they have developed a novel micro and nanotechnology, the micropallet array (MPA) consisting of an array of microfabricated polymer elements combined with multicolor immunofluorescence and advanced confocal imroscopy to permit the simultaneous identification, recovery, and evaluation of selected molecular profiles from viable primary adherent cell populations, representing the various cellular elements within individual tumors.
The hypothesis for these studies is that the PMA technology will permit the identification, enumeration, and recovery of the following individual cellular tumor elements: cancer stem, endothelial progenitor, myopithelial, and bulk malignant epithelial cells leading to the molecular characterization of these cellular subsets within individual tumors, and that CASCs are an integral cellular subset comprising breast cancer tumors, and are believed to be resistant to current therapeutic strategies. The MPA is used to identify, isolate, and recover individual cellular elements, such as cancer stem cells, from primary human breast tumors obtained by Fine Needle Aspirate samples (FNA). The necessary methodology to do so will be optimized in mixed control cell line that were selected based on their expression of cell surface molecules that are also expressed in the cells that Trisha is interested in identifying from breast tumor samples.
Cells recovered from primary breast tumors will be subject to single cell qRT-PCR to analyze the expression of genes known to be associated with enhanced therapeutic activity or toxicity to the patient to assess the relative responsiveness of the CSCs to current breast cancer therapies. When the responsiveness of CSCs to certain treatments is elucidated, the knowledge gained from this proposed project can be utilized to rationally construct individualized therapies based on representation of CSCs within each patients? of tumor at the time of diagnosis. Trisha expressed that Lifechips program helped her to find suitable labs during her lab rotation period. In her program alone, there are more than 140 faculty members and the Lifechips faculty member list helped her to search for those who are in the field of biology that are collaborating with engineering. Eventually, her search narrowed down to the lab of Dr. Ed Nelson who is now her advisor.
Address Goals
IGERT-Lifechips student Trisha Westerhof showed that Lifechips program has played a significant role in her collaborated research project between two labs that are both of Lifechips faculty members. The interdisciplinary research theme that Lifechips program emphasizes heavily on is shown through her research project where she works closely with another lab in using their tool to test her hypothesis. Although Trisha is still early in her graduate study, she has already made great progress in her research by reaching out to other resources from different labs. She even presented her research findings at her home department mini symposia that took place in winter quarter at UC Irvine.
