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Biomedical Sciences Seminar – Dr. Edna Cukierman

October 15, 2019 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm

Dr. Edna Cukierman will be visiting WSU Spokane on October 15th.  Please plan to attend her seminar at 12:00pm in SAC 345, entitled ‘OCOGENIC SYNAPSES: Stromal Regulators of PDAC Metabolic Support & Innate Immunosuppression.’

Sign up here for a meeting and/or meal time.  Please share this email with your group to sign up.

Dr. Edna Cukierman is an Associate Professor of the Cancer Biology Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Head of the Tumor Microenvironment Lab and Co-Leader of Marvin & Concetta Greenberg Pancreatic Cancer Institute.

Research at the Cukierman lab focuses on “desmoplasia” mesenchymal microenvironment associated with solid epithelial cancers (i.e., pancreatic cancer), which resembles chronic wounding (i.e., cellular fibrosis).  As a tumor microenvironment devoted laboratory, the ongoing research goal is to query the roles that desmoplasia plays in epithelial tumor development and progression.  The team developed a human desmoplasia mimetic 3D system and uses it to conduct multi cellular co-culture experiments of stromal cells such as fibroblasts, nerves and immune cells as well as tumor and normal epithelial cells.  The current research focus is to uncover reciprocal pro- and anti-tumor cell-matrix and cell-cell signaling involving stromal cells (i.e., immune and fibroblastic cells) and in tumor-stromal interactions.  Emphasis is placed in understanding desmoplasia’s role in providing nutritional/metabolic support to cancer cells as well as in promoting immunosuppression.  Tissue engineering methodologies are often used to question the topographical/architectural vs. biochemical aspects of tumor-associated stromal extracellular matrices.  Basic research is followed by pre-clinical therapeutic approaches using orthotopic xenografts and genetic murine models.  Studies incorporate molecular, biochemical and cell-based assays, as well as laser scanning confocal, multi-photon, real time and multi-color microscopy, digital imaging analyses, tissue patterning and more.  Clinical-relevancies and validations are probed via simultaneous multiplex-spectral immunofluorescence (SMI: 7/8 colors); analysis software was specially developed at the lab for this approach (https://github.com/cukie/SMIA-CUKIE).

Details

Date:
October 15, 2019
Time:
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Event Category:

Organizer

Michelle Sanchez

Venue

SAC 345
600 N. Riverpoint Blvd. + Google Map