Mentor Areas
Development of a safe and reproducible method to selectively acidify and de-energize the human cancers. Specifically, we seek to employ the natural tendency of cancers to convert glucose to lactate as a method for selective intracellular acidification, which is known to potentiate tumor response to chemotherapy, radiation therapy. In vivo 31P and 1H Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy demonstrated that human cancer xenografts such as melanoma, breast, prostate and ovarian in immunosuppressed mice treated with metabolic modulators exhibit a sustained and tumor-selective decrease in pH, bioenergetics and increase in lactate and subsequent sensitization to chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Description:
There is a critical need to develop methods to sensitize metastatic prostate cancer, the most common cancer in men and second most deadly, to taxane chemotherapy. While short-term androgen deprivation therapy is effective at treating prostate cancer, approximately half of the cases progress to metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, which is non-responsive to hormonal therapies. We propose to use metabolic modulators to enhance the chemotherapy, and sophisticated MR imaging and spectroscopic (MRI\MRS) techniques to assess the effect that the modulators have on the model systems to be studied.
Preferred Qualifications
Prior experience in cell culture and maintenance as well as mouse handling is preferred.
Details:
Preferred Student Year
First-year, Second-Year, Junior, Senior
Academic Term
Fall, Spring, Summer
I prefer to have students start during the above term(s).Volunteer
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to volunteers.Paid
No
Yes indicates that faculty are open to paying students they engage in their research, regardless of their work-study eligibility.Work Study
Yes
Yes indicates that faculty are open to hiring work-study-eligible students.