Hey readers! This week’s blog post is a draft of my abstract for my summer project. With our poster presentation in less than two weeks, my projects are beginning to wrap up, so I wrote this draft to encapsulate the work I’ve done so far in a concise paragraph:
There are current inadequacies in the understanding and treatment of brain metastases. This study explored the role of ABL kinase, a non-receptor tyrosine kinase, in lung to brain metastasis with the goal of identifying novel targets for anti-metastatic therapy. We explored this concept using two approaches: 1) assessing the role of ABL in an EML4-ALK fusion cell line (unexplored to date) and 2) screening genes linked to ABL and examining their role in promoting metastasis. These questions were explored in vitro, either in the EML4-ALK fusion cell line or in a brain metastatic-derived cell line (respectively for each approach). Many properties of the EML4-ALK fusion line were found to be impacted by ABL, identifying ABL as an important, and targetable, regulator of this cancer subtype. In comparison to the parental cell line, multiple genes were shown to be upregulated in the brain metastatic-derived cell line. Furthermore, many of these targets were significantly attenuated in an ABL knockdown line. These results implicate ABL as an influential part of the EML4-ALK fusion cancer type, as well as establish novel mechanisms of ABL-regulated metastasis.
Next week I’ll be reflecting on one of the faculty talks we have had so far this summer. See ya then!
-Brennan