Spotlight
Connecting top-down and bottom-up models of systems biology
Two distinct approaches are being used to study complex cellular systems. The first, top-down approach automatically analyzes large-scale datasets for correlations between genes and proteins... Read More
Electroporation for targeted ablation of tumors
CTE faculty members Drs. Verbridge and Davalos are currently working to understand cell-specific responses to High Frequency Irreversible Electroporation (HFIRE) pulses, in order to ultimately translate this technique for the targeted ablation of malignant cells in glioma. PhD students primarily working on this project are Jill Ivey in the Verbridge lab and Eduardo Latouche in the Davalos lab, who have thus far demonstrated tumor cell-specific targeting in 3D tissue-engineered tumor co-culture models (see figure, adapted from Ivey, Latouche et. al., Scientific Reports, 2015). This project is ongoing, and current efforts are to understand specific death mechanisms resulting from HFIRE and the potential for enhancing these death responses, as well as the response of primary patient-derived cell types, including glioma stem cells (GSCs).
Kill zones (dark regions) for tumor cells (green) and astrocytes (red) in co-culture after exposure to 0.5us HFIRE pulses. The tumor lesion is much larger than the astrocyte one. Scale bar: 1 mm.