Innate Immunity Against Cancer

This was the first major project that I spearheaded, where I created the entire experimental design and recruited/trained other to participate.

Spring 2023 - Current

PI: Dr. Zhou

Cancer and Genetics Research Institute

Research Focus

To induce cancer within flies, we are able to use a Gal4 driver; which is a tissue specific gene, meaning it only expresses in the designated tissue. So if we had an eyGal4 driver, it will only expressed in the eye. The other component needed is an effector, such as UAS (upstream activating sequence). UAS is a binding site on the DNA for Gal4, which leads to transcription of genes down stream of the UAS. So if we cross a fly with an eyGal4 driver and a fly with UAS that has cancer cause gene down stream like UAS-RasV12 (RasV12 is an protein that leads to an over proliferation of cells), we can artificially induce cancer in the eye of a fruit fly. However using this method, we have fruit flies that are born and immediately start to express cancer causing genes, and the earliest we can measure their RNA is after 5 days. 5 days may not sound like a lot for humans, but it is years to fruit flies. At this point we are pretty much measuring the prolonged effect of cancer expression. This is why I propose we use flies with both Gal4 and Gal80. Gal80 binds to Gal4 at low temperatures, inhibiting it, however it falls off at higher temperatures. This way, we are able to control cancer expression using temperature manipulation, and we will be able to measure how the immune system react to cancer at the earliest point. This way we can possibly draw comparison to humans and predict early stage cancer from immune system behavior. The photo to the right was produced during the experimental phase using Gal80 on a larvae, at 30C the cancer cells marked by the green color is expressing. At lower temperatures when Gal80 is still binded, there is no green color, indicating no cancer cell proliferation.

Responsibilities

I am the primary coordinator of the project, most of the planning, genetic experiments, data collection, and analysis was performed by me. This ongoing experiment has taught me a lot about everything that goes into a proper scientific experiment. It taught me how to endure all of the tedium that can happen in research, all of the set backs that can demoralize you. Nevertheless, the entire process thus far has made me more resilient than ever, and also made me more knowledgeable in planning for an entire project.