Undergraduate Research Experience
Physics of Cancer
Cancer remains the second major cause of deaths in the USA. The diagnosis of cancers such pancreatic, lung, colon, and ovarian are a death sentence mainly because of the failure to detect them before the metastatic stage (1).
Metastasis is an intricate process where cancer cells
separate from the primary tumor, enter the circulatory
system and through their journey encounter thermal,
kinetic, mechanical, and chemical forces before they
colonize distant organs (Fig 1). Research progress depends
on an integrated approach, combining tools from diverse disciplines spanning from biology, the physical sciences,
to bioengineering.
Figure 1. Metastasis. A) Millions of cancer cells enter the vasculate with the end goal of reaching a secondary site. However, only a unique set of cancer cells carrying specific glycoproteins and glycoconjugates will reach their goal and proliferate.
Glycobiology, the study of glycoproteins, glycoconjugates and their binding partners, has also expanded our understanding of the underlining nature of metastasis. We now know that there is a significant correlation between certain types of altered glycosylation and the actual prognosis of tumor-bearing animals or patients. Steadily, in vitro cellular assays support the notion that these post-translational modification changes are critical to aspects of tumor cell behavior and certain glycan structures are well-known markers for tumor progression. However, progress has been slow due to the complexity of glycans and the lack of new technology to study them.
Glycoengineering (GE) is a relative new field that deals with the structural modification of glycans. GE can be metabolic, metabolic glycoengineering (MGE), where non natural sugar analogs are used to alter the glycome in a global manner (Almaraz, 2012). Chemoenzymatic glycoengineering (CGE) however implements enzymes to quatitatively and specifically modify glycoconjugates in living cells (Almaraz, 2017).
|
| |
Project 1: Docking
Project 2: MD Simulations
Project 3: Glycosylation
of Natural products
|
|
