Sargis Shameon
Pronouns:
Research Mentor(s): Jiaqi Shi
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Pathology / Medicine
Program: CG
Session: Session 3 (11:00am – 11:50am)
Authors: Sargis Shameon, Jiaqi Shi
Abstract
Pancreatic cancer has proven to be one of the most detrimental types of cancer to treat, as many forms of immunotherapy fail to provide success in battling this disease. Prior studies have shown the failure of proper treatment of pancreatic cancer is conceivably due to the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment that delays or prevents proper immune response, especially when cancer becomes metastatic and transfers to other organs, such as the liver. We are investigating why this form of cancer has a lower survival rate and is more treatment-resistant than other cancers. Our project is trying to clarify the mechanism behind the KMT2D gene in terms of potential immunotherapeutic treatment. Our project relies on cell culture and CRISPR-Cas9 procedures to create KMT2D knockout cell lines to perform both in-vitro and in-vivo mice assays of these cells and tumor growth. Afterward, treatment with chemo and/or immune checkpoint inhibitors will be performed, and tumor-growth inspections will be performed on the mice to collect data and analyze the difference in treatment response. A correlation between the KMT2D gene and cancer treatment response will provide insight into the function of KMT2D in pancreatic cancer development and treatment resistance. These results will offer a deeper understanding of pancreatic cancer biology and identify new strategies to treat these patients.
