Michelle Huang
Pronouns: She/Her
Research Mentor(s): Xing Fan
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Neurosurgery and Cell and Developmental Biology / Medicine
Program:
Authors: Michelle Huang, Adrien Chung, Xing Fan
Session: Session 6: 3:40 pm – 4:30 pm
Poster: 36
Abstract
Over 300,000 people are diagnosed with glioblastoma a year, one of the most common and fatal types of malignant brain cancer, with survival time of only 14 months after diagnosis. Current treatments typically involve surgically removing tumors and using chemoradiation therapy to stop cancer cell regeneration. However, these treatments often fail to completely remove cancer stem cells, extending patients’ lives by only a few months instead of curing them completely. The notch signaling pathway—a cellular pathway in the brain that plays an instrumental role in the division and self-renewal abilities of cancer cells—is the focus of this research. Currently, an inhibitor of this pathway is being tested by pharmaceutical companies as a treatment option for glioblastoma, as inhibition of the notch pathway would prevent any remaining cancer stem cells from dividing and decrease the possibility of tumor recurrence. However, recent clinical trials have found that the inhibitor only yielded positive results for ~25% of patients, leading scientists to believe that a genetic resistance to the drug may be the cause of its limited effectiveness in larger populations. As such, the goal of this research is to determine the genetic causes behind glioblastoma Notch inhibitor resistance by examining resistant glioblastoma cell samples.
