Benjamin Daniels
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): Xing Fan
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Neurosurgery and Cell and Developmental Biology / Medicine
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 7 (4:40pm – 5:30pm)
Authors: Benjamin Daniels, Meijuan Lin, Xing Fan
Abstract
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is the most aggressive and lethal form of brain tumor. Despite the intensive multimodal treatments comprising surgical resection and chemo/radiation therapy, the current prognosis of GBM patients remains poor in terms of length of survival (median survival of 14.6 months) and survival rate (below 4% for 5 years). The cancer stem cell hypothesis suggests that the cancer may only be cured by targeting and removing the cancer stem cells that lie within the tumor. While glioblastoma stem cells have been isolated using the CD133 protein marker, recent data has revealed that in certain types of cancer, the stem cells can, in fact, be present in populations that are negative for the CD133 gene, thereby indicating that further markers may be needed to isolate pure cancer stem cell populations. GBM have a high frequency of tumor suppressor gene p53 and phosphatase and tensin homolog (pPTEN) deficiencies. Loss of p53 and PTEN function is associated with poor prognosis and poor response to anticancer therapies, suggesting that PTEN and p53 both play a role in patient outcome. In our study, we investigated the effects of combined p53 and PTEN deficiency on downstream gene expression and cell proliferation, aiming to discover a potential therapeutic targets for GBM.
