John F. P. Bridges, professor in the Departments of Biomedical Informatics and Surgery

The Coordinating Center for the Participant Engagement and Cancer Genome Sequencing (PE-CGS) Network (pe-cgs.org) will be hosting a Summer Scholar program in 2023. The PE-CGS Network is a collaborative effort between researchers and participants and their communities. The PE-CGS Network is funded by the National Cancer Institute as part of the Cancer Moonshot Initiative. For our Summer Scholar program, driven students will gain hands-on experience in projects that add strategic value to the PE-CGS Network and support the goals of the Coordinating Center. Students will have the opportunity to contribute to research on ways to better engage a broad and diverse group of cancer patients and survivors in cancer genomics research. Students can also build skillsets in strategic communications, including branding, social media, and content creation. Throughout the experience students will be given an end-to-end project to complete and can take part in a variety of trainings to increase learning.

Jessica Winter, professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Department of Biomedical Engineering 

My current research interests are in bionanotechnology for cancer diagnostics and 3D models of tumor microenvironment. The proposed project would focus on evaluating the effect of different mechanical properties in the tumor microenvironment on glioma cell migration and signaling. Glioma is a brain cancer with an average 5-year survival of about 15 months. Our research is focused on understanding why and how glioma cells migrate to try to limit their spread and identify new therapies.

Blake Peterson, professor and chair of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy 

The Peterson laboratory synthesizes small molecules as probes of cancer biology and tools for drug discovery. We extensively use confocal microscopy and related fluorescence technologies to analyze small molecule — protein interactions in living cells. Students working in our laboratory are involved in the design, chemical synthesis, and biological evaluation of fluorescent probes of proteins that drive cancer proliferation. These probes are used to characterize interactions between small molecules and proteins and develop assays for the discovery of novel anticancer agents using high throughput and high content screening technologies. u.osu.edu/petersonlab

Qin Ma, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics 

BMBL focuses on the research of single-cell multi-omics data modeling and analyses, aiming to develop cutting-edge computational tools to discover underlying mechanisms in diverse biological systems. Specific topics include but are not limited to, regulatory mechanisms in complex tissues, immuno-informatics, neurodegenerative disease, and microbiome and host interactions. We welcome the opportunity to collaborate with current undergraduate students in the Kenyon College Summer Undergraduate Research Program to pursue research projects in biomedical informatics. Potential students should be familiar with at least one of the following programming: R, Python, and the Linux environment. Special skills may be required for specific projects, such as package or library development experiences. The students are required to have a fundamental knowledge of biology and are expected to be developing a bioinformatics software package that utilizes in-house algorithms, methods, or deep learning models related to the single-cell data analysis field. Rather than developing a novel algorithm for a particular biological question, the project's focus would be implementing modern software development practices to an application and extension of one of BMBL’s published methods. The final product could be either an R or Python package, followed by maintainable code, well-documented tutorials, user-friendly APIs, and intuitive visualization functions.

Timothy Pawlik and Elizabeth Palmer

The nature of complex surgical intervention to treat a cancer diagnosis requires an incredible amount of trust within the patient-surgeon relationship. The surgeon-patient relationship in the context of complex surgery is unique as there is often uncertainty surrounding best treatment options. Thus, the surgeon is tasked with building trust and safety in the relationship within a limited amount of time to prepare patients to make difficult, high-stakes decisions. Consequently, surgeons having a patient-centered approach to tailored, shared decision-making (SDM) is of vital importance. Unfortunately, there has been limited uptake of SDM in the complex surgical context. Developing tailored interventions that address the needs of these surgeons and their patients that improve the patient-provider relationship and resulting SDM processes have the potential to address this significant gap in clinical care and knowledge. This may be especially important for marginalized and historically underserved patients as these patients are at higher risk for poor communication and a strained patient-provider relationship. The purpose of this study is to determine surgeons’ perceptions and attitudes towards the use of shared decision-making in the complex surgical cases. Data from this project will be used to develop a patient decision support aid for use in the pre-operative context.

Thomas Cherpes, associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology

The focus of our lab is mucosal immunology. We are a good fit for self-motivated and team-oriented individuals. Our lab has extensive experience mentoring undergraduate students that participate in summer-long research programs.

Potential Project: Work related to the development of a micro-particle vaccine platform that demonstrates the ability to boost anti-pathogen and anti-tumor host defense. Students will also perform basic lab chores, participate in weekly lab meetings, and receiving all necessary training to conduct this research. In particular, students will receive training in flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry.

Yael Vodovotz, professor in the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences 

My research focuses on finding novel adjuvant therapies for cancer patients undergoing conventional treatment and is specifically concentrated on cancer cachexia. As a part of this research, a murine model of cancer cachexia is used. A potential project for a student would include:

  • Determining genes of interest that are related to tissue wasting or some aspect of cancer cachexia.

  • Being mentored on measuring gene expression using PCR analysis, including the process of RNA extraction on skeletal muscle, adipose, or some other tissue.

  • Creating graphs to visually represent data generated from PCR analysis.

  • Writing an abstract or project summary explaining the background, methodology, results, and conclusions of the findings of the project.

By the end of the project, the student will be able to explain what cancer cachexia is, why combating cancer cachexia is of critical importance, the methodology and technical aspects of using PCR analysis to measure gene expression and be able to communicate findings in a scientific manner.

Matthew Summers, associate professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology

The loss of internal controls that limit and regulate cell growth is a hallmark of cancer cells. Although cancer cells tolerate certain levels of changes to their DNA they must retain the blueprints for building the machinery required for cell growth and survival. Thus, they must still duplicate and transmit their genomes from one generation to the next with minimal errors in order for the tumor to continue to grow. The checkpoints that monitor these processes are rarely defective in cancer cells and are often highly active due to the loss of other control mechanisms. By inducing additional stress and/or inhibiting these remaining checkpoints we can induce death in tumors. The goal of our research is to understand how cancer cells overcome their internal stress and cope with drug-induced stress to guide the development of improved therapeutic strategies. We currently have two main projects.  In the first project, we are examining the role of the cancer-associated enzyme USP37 in helping cancer cells survive their own internal stress and that caused by chemotherapy. The second project focuses on the regulation of chromosome segregation in mitosis. We utilize a multi-faceted approach to achieve our goals including proteomic, cellular, microscopy and biochemical based analyses. Potential projects include construction of cellular models for monitoring cell growth or to enhance proteomic studies, analysis of protein-protein interactions in a purified system, and live cell analysis of cellular response to drug-induced stress, among others.

James Blachly, assistant professor in the Division of Hematology

The Blachly lab studies functional genomics of leukemia, but the techniques (sequencing library preparations, molecular biology, molecular genomics), software we develop, and translational applications extrapolate well to other cancers and the study of normal genomes as well. A specific area of interest is the large-scale structure of genomes, including comparative analyses and structural variant (SV) discovery. We have specific research programs and opportunities in:

  1. technical development of novel NGS library preparation techniques, (mostly wet lab)
  2. computational biology: development of bioinformatics software (all computational)
  3. correlative studies and assisting in translational drug development in leukemia (mostly data science and computation)

Daniel Gallego Perez, associate professor with Biomedical Engineering 

Our lab is currently working on developing novel nanotechnologies for the treatment of neurofibromas, especially in neurofibromatosis type I (NF1). The goal is to develop platform technologies to selectively deliver therapeutic cargo to Schwann cells, with the intent to treat or prevent the development of cutaneous and/or peripheral neurofibromas. These tumors are notoriously difficult to treat and cause a lot of morbidities and could potentially become malignant. Our approach involves the use of tissue nano-transfection and engineered extracellular vesicles to address some of the genetic abnormalities that drive the formation of neurofibromas.

Aldenise Ewing, assistant professor in the College of Public Health 

Ewing’s research is designed to reduce cancer health inequities by promoting cancer education and increasing access to cancer screenings for underserved and minority communities by leveraging Community-Based Participatory Research. For a summer project, students may learn from meetings with community stakeholders, engage in literature reviews for manuscript development and publication, research study design, instrument development, and/or data collection and analyses.

Zobeida Cruz-Monserrate, assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition 

The Cruz-Monserrate laboratory research program is focused on studying pancreatic diseases in particular pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) which is one of the deadliest human malignancies, with dismal long-term survival and limited advances in treatment. The long-term goals of my research laboratory are to develop novel strategies for the detection, prevention and treatment of PDAC and pancreatitis via uncovering unique mechanisms related to the initiation of these diseases. Towards this goal we have shown that the molecule integrin alpha6beta4, the enzyme Cathepsin E (CTSE), and pH-sensitive imaging probes are all early biomarkers of PDAC development. We have been engaged in the development of novel imaging probes that have the potential to detect and treat pancreas containing early lesions of PDAC using the enzymatic activity of CTSE using pre-clinical mouse models. This technology applies to any other diseases that express CTSE at high levels which is the case of pancreatic cancer.

We are also interested in the prevention of obesity-associated tumor development. Obesity has been associated with an increased risk of cancer development, in particular PDAC. Obesity rates in adults and children have also skyrocketed during the past 2 decades. Therefore, it is critical that we begin to understand the molecular mechanisms of how obesity promotes cancer development. In an effort to discover alternative methods of studying obesity and its relationship to PDAC development, we work with a mouse model of obesity associated PDAC which we use to study some of the mechanisms that link obesity and PDAC. 

There are multiple projects available related to the topics described above which can be further refine based the students interests and future career goals.

Dario Palmieri, assistant professor in the Department of Cancer Biology and Genetics

The Palmieri lab studies the mechanisms that regulate how a cancer cell divides and proliferates. We are mostly interested in understanding what mechanisms controlling cell division and proliferation are mutated and lost in cancer, which impair conventional therapies. To achieve our goal, we take extensive advantage of cell and gene reprogramming using CRISPR-Cas9, a molecular tool that allows to modify the sequence of endogenous genes allowing their study.

Anna Vilgelm, assistant professor in the Department of Pathology 

Vilgelm's laboratory is engaged in pre-clinical research to develop novel, effective strategies for the therapy of melanoma and metastatic breast cancer. Vilgelm’s recent studies focus on developing therapies that can facilitate tumor immune recognition and stimulate anti-tumor immunity by inducing a “hot,” immune cell-enriched tumor microenvironment. Her group also evaluates strategies for combining tumor-targeted and immune therapies for effective and long-lasting tumor control. They utilize Patient-Derived models, such as Patient-Derived xenografts and organoids, along with immunocompetent murine models, with the ultimate goal of advancing precision oncology and personalized immunotherapy fields. Students might work on testing novel therapeutics and immunomodulatory agents on patient-derived organoids and work to investigate mechanisms of tumor immune evasion using immune cell-organoid co-culture models. There are several projects that may train students in RNAseq, proteomics, and high-plex spectral cytometry tumor immunophenotyping, data analysis and mining, such as pathway analysis, gene set enrichment analysis, immune subsets estimation, transcription factor prediction, t-SNE dimension reduction, clustering etc.

Daniel Spakowicz, assistant professor in the Division of Medical Oncology

  1. We study how to use the microbiome as a biomarker of cancer treatment responses and as a therapeutic target to improve treatment outcomes. We support microbiome collection in clinical trials at the OSUCCC and nationally, run our own trials that seek to modify the microbiome through dietary or other interventions, and test for causality using preclinical models. We pride ourselves in offering training in all aspects of the process, from patient interaction and sample processing to sequencing library generation and bioinformatics. We have a variety of computational projects looking for low-abundance microbes in tumors or tissues and inferring their effects. We recently completed a clinical trial giving participants a dietary intervention to modify their gut microbiome. Now, we are testing which of the microbes enriched by the intervention affect how a person would respond to cancer treatment with immunotherapy. These experiments involve mouse models given a human participant's microbiome supplemented with one additional microbe and then testing the size of the tumor over time along with the effects on the tumor immune cell composition and other features of the immune system.
  2. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) disproportionately affects older adults, but this demographic is the least studied in cancer research. Treatments for lung cancer are evolving rapidly, resulting in improved overall survival even for patients with advanced disease. However, the pace of discovery and the underrepresentation of older adults in clinical trials leads to newer treatments, such as immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), being severely understudied in this population. This is true of treatment biomarkers and new therapeutic targets, such as the gut microbiome. Recent evidence has pointed to the gut microbiome as playing a critical role in response to ICB1–3. However, the microbiome is known to change with age — microbial composition alone may predict age within a few years. We recently completed a trial of older adults receiving cancer treatment and found different microbes associated with response than has been observed in younger populations. We are now testing these microbes in young and old mice to determine how the older-adult microbiome affects response to ICB. This project will be co-mentored by Carolyn Presley, a geriatric and thoracic oncologist.

Kamalakannan Palanichamy, associate professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology 

My research focuses on understanding the underlying biology of the most aggressive malignancies and transforming these findings into therapeutic interventions. I utilize tools from each aspect of my unique background in biology, biochemistry, bioinformatics, crystallography, drug design and oncology, to identify predictive and prognostic markers and uncover their role in tumorigenesis. 

Metabolic Flux Analysis: We have built the foundation studies on how methionine metabolism fuels brain tumor progression and this article was highlighted in clinical cancer research (2016) (PMID: 26936918). Currently we are planning to utilize metabolic flux to gain mechanistic insight into GBM amino acid metabolism with a view to identify potential metabolic vulnerabilities which can be used for therapeutic intervention.

Developmental Therapeutic in Radiation Oncology by Utilizing Synthetic Lethality Concept: We have demonstrated that in brain tumors Akt kinase inhibition induced synthetic lethality with radiation treatment depending on the mutational status of tumor suppressor TP53. In principle this strategy could provide a large therapeutic window for radiation treatment of TP53 mutant tumors due to the sparing of normal tissue. This article was selected as Focus article in molecular cancer therapeutics (2018) (PMID: 28838997). We are building up this work to identify other synthetic lethal combinations and test them in orthotopic tumor models and translate them for clinical intervention.