Author Archives: Vidita Shah

PI: Zhiqing Huang, MD PhD

Modern cancer research has been focused on how the tumor microenvironment (TME) affects cancer cell growth. This project’s purpose was to observe how the presence of the periostin (POSTN) protein as well as ascites in the TME affect the chemosensitivity of ovarian cancer cells, with the expectation that their presence would decrease chemosensitivity. This project was conducted by growing two lines of fibroblasts, one with and one without the POSTN gene; this produced medium that both contained and didn’t contain the POSTN protein. Ovarian cancer cells were then grown in this conditioned medium, along with ascites and an assay was performed to determine how growth in ascites and POSTN affected chemosensitivity after chemotherapy was administered to the tumor cells. Preliminary results from this project show that when cancer cells were grown in ascites, the presence of POSTN did decrease chemosensitivity after the administration of chemotherapy. These results support previously conducted research into the effects of POSTN on the chemosensitivity of cancer cell types. These results can be used to provide better therapies for ovarian cancer. Understanding how the TME affects tumor growth can lead to more targeted treatment of ovarian cancer based on what is present in a patient’s TME.

Throughout her scientific career, Dr. Zhiqing Huang has had to navigate international moves, her obligations as a wife and mother, and her own growing and changing interests as a scientist. At the beginning of our interview, Dr. Huang started by saying that her story was uninteresting because she became a research faculty later in her career than other professors, but I found her story to be the exact opposite of uninteresting.

Dr. Huang’s story starts in China. She began her journey in science by getting her medical degree. In China, unlike in the US, students do not need a bachelors to attend medical school. After attending medical school, Dr. Huang taught pathology at another medical school in China for eight years.

After her stint as a teacher, Dr. Huang found herself interested in pursuing research, so she went to another university to get her masters. Unlike in the US, students must get a masters before their PhD. By the time Zhiqing started pursuing her masters, she was already married and had one child. Zhiqing spent three years getting her masters in molecular pathology, however towards the end of her masters her husband was offered a scholarship and opportunity to work in Germany.

Zhiqing followed her husband to Germany where she continued her masters research and got her PhD in MCB after three years of research. She spoke incredibly highly of her experience in Germany. She described how she’s still in regular contact with her mentor from her PhD, Dr. Ralph Witzgall.

After completing her PhD, Dr. Huang and her husband faced an impasse. Zhiqing’s husband wanted to return to China and practice medicine, while Zhiqing wanted to go to America to pursue a research career. Their family decided to come to America. Zhiqing’s first job in America was as a postdoc in MCB at a lab within Baylor College of Medicine. After completing her postdoc, Zhiqing’s husband got a job at GlaxoSmithKline, leading the family to move to NC. Upon reaching NC, Zhiqing had her second son leading to her taking a bit of a step back from her research career. Zhiqing pursued a second postdoc in NC and following this postdoc, she became a research scientist which led to her then becoming a professor at Duke.

Zhiqing’s lab now focuses on ovarian cancer research. She began her career in pathology and her past work focused on reproductive cancers, primarily breast cancer. After Zhiqing took over her lab at Duke from the previous professor, she took up his work in ovarian cancer.

Dr. Huang’s lab focuses on the study of ovarian cancer. She is specifically interested in studying the tumor microenvironment, or how the environment around a tumor affects the way it functions. My project will focus on the relationship between age and how receptive cancer cell lines are to chemotherapy. Previous studies have shown that older patients suffering from ovarian cancer have significantly worse outcomes than those that are younger. My project seeks to understand some of the mechanisms that may lead to the worse outcomes among older patients.

In all honesty, I don’t have all of the details about my project ironed out just yet because my professor has been out of the lab for the last two weeks on a previously planned vacation. But, she gave me a basic outline of my project and some literature to look at before I got the chance to get started working on it when she’s back. I’ll be culturing a cancer cell line, HEYA8, to look at the effects of aging on ovarian cancer. These cancer cells will be cultured in the medium from preadipocytes. Preadipocytes are fat precursor cells and they are part of the tumor microenvironment for ovarian cancer tumors. I’ll end up comparing how sensitive these ovarian cancer cells are to chemotherapy depending on whether they were grown in medium from aged vs. young preadipocytes. I will also be culturing the preadipocytes myself, and they will be cultured at different doubling times in order to create the aged vs. young lines. I’ll be conducting chemosensitivity tests on the cancer cell lines in order to evaluate if the age of the preadipocytes makes a difference.

Just to start off with some context, my name’s Vidita, and I’m spending the summer working at the Huang lab. Dr. Huang’s lab works on ovarian cancer cell research. My specific project relates to testing the chemosensitivity of cancer cells when they are in aged fat precursor cells vs when they are in young fat precursor cells, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Since this is my first time working in this lab, or any lab at all, I’ve mainly spent the past week learning the basics. I’ve basically been shadowing my mentor, Lila, as she does her own project and learning from what she’s doing. She’s shown me how to prepare new cell medium, change the medium for a cell culture, trypsinize cell cultures, count cells in culture, and more. Yesterday, I got to trypsinize a cell culture for the first time. Trypsinization is essentially the process of releasing cancer cells from the bottom of the flask that they’re growing on so that they can be frozen down for later use. In all honesty, the process was pretty stressful because since we’re working with cancer cells, they need to stay in a sterile environment. This means making sure everything stays in the hood and having to be incredibly careful about not touching your pipets or tools to the wrong parts of the cell culture flasks. Luckily, my first attempt at trypsinization was a success. I’m really looking forward to getting more familiar and comfortable with these procedures.

This is going to sound pretty trite, but I’m just expecting to learn and experience science in a way that I hadn’t before, by working in this lab. I can’t wait to learn new scientific techniques. I’m excited to work through whatever setbacks may come my way. I’m just interested to see where this experience leads me. I’ve always been interested in reproductive health and healthcare, but I’m not interested in being a clinician. I’m hoping that this experience in a reproductive health lab will help me figure out whether or not I could see myself doing more work like this in the future. I expect to learn more about this side of reproductive health that I hadn’t investigated before. I want to learn more about the various types of tumor cell lines that I’m making and the different chemotherapies they’re using. I’m hoping to get better at reading dense scientific papers. I just want to take advantage of all the experiences this summer throws at me.