Christian DeVaull
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Research Mentor(s): Sophia Orbach
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Biomedical Engineering / Engineering
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 6 – 4:40pm – 5:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Christian DeVaull, Sophia Orbach, Lonnie Shea
Presenter: 38
Abstract
In many cases cancer at the initial site is not deadly, but it is the metastasis of these cells that creates tissue dysfunction. This advance stage of cancer become difficult to treat and detect before a patient is in critical condition. Although, liquid biopsies have proven to aid in metastatic detection its low cell numbers and lack of phenotypic relevance show that this method is not completely reliable. We investigated the potential of a synthetic metastatic niche (scaffolds) to distinguish mouse-derived, metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (4T1 cells) from its non-metastatic counterparts (67NR and 4T07 cells) at early stages of disease. At the end of each experiment, we collected the scaffolds, lungs, and blood from the mice. We established a 9-gene signature from the scaffolds that could delineate the metastatic cancer at each of three time points – 7-days, 14-days, or 21-days post-tumor inoculation. Herein, we will be presenting on the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to test the application of the scaffold signature on the blood and lungs and the accuracy of blood- and lung-derived signatures at identifying metastatic cancer over time.
Biomedical Sciences, Engineering, Interdisciplinary
