Specialty:
Molecular Biology and Genetics
Location:
University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Medical Campus
Prerequisites:
The student must have completed at least 2 years of college.
Number of Openings: 1
Objective:
Our previous human and animal model studies of lung cancer
point to the important role of maintaining prostacyclin synthase (PGIS)
expression in the lung as a protective mechanism from developing or regressing
premalignant lesions.
In our studies of pulmonary arterial hypertension, we
have found certain relatively rare genotypes of the PGIS promoter are
associated with protection from developing this disease and higher
transcriptional activities in cell culture. The goal for this summer project
will be to determine the PGIS promoter genotypes in a cohort of lung cancer
patients and controls, and see if there is a correlation with disease.
Description:
The summer student will prepare genomic DNA from blood
samples from the patient/control cohort. Using a variety of novel polymerase
chain reaction (PCR) approaches, the student will determine each individual’s
PGIS promoter genotype. Lung epithelial cells are thought to be the cell of
origin for most lung cancer.
The student will start a new tissue culture project using
our collection of PGIS promoter reporter plasmids. The tissue culture model
will examine the transcriptional activities of different genotype in an
immortalized lung epithelial cell when grown at the air-liquid interface.