Establishing Multiple Myeloma drug screening platforms to predict patients’ response to therapy (Extension project)
Standing
Undergraduate
Type of Proposal
Oral Research Presentation
Challenges Theme
Open Challenge
Faculty Sponsor
Dr. Lisa Porter, Dr. Lubanska, and Jillian Brown
Proposal
The Abstract/proposal: Multiple Myeloma (MM) is a hematopoietic malignancy, which consists of the abnormal proliferation of one type of white blood cells, called plasma cells, in the bone marrow. MM affects patients aged 65 years or older and causes various health complications like bone lesions, anemia, and hypercalcemia. Around 58000 patients get diagnosed with MM yearly, around the globe.Effective assessment of the disease progression and its response to current as well as novel therapeutic regimens require a throughput in vivo setting. This research focuses on a novel zebrafish xenograft model to study MM. Zebrafish demonstrate characteristics advantageous for efficient research approaches, including easiness of imaging, capacity for high throughput assays, and genomic parallels with humans. The purpose of this project is to establish and validate a MM xenograft model in zebrafish as a study and drug screening in vivo platform.This project demonstrates how the Inhibitory concentrations (IC50s) of standard-of-care and novel drugs are tested in vitro using MM cell lines and primary MM patient-derived cells which are collected in collaboration with hematologists at WRH. Fluorescent MM cells are then injected into zebrafish larvae at 48 hours post fertilization. We observe successful MM engraftment at 96 hours post-injection (hpi). The rate of tumor formation and burden are analyzed using microscopy with computer software, up to 144hpi. The impact of applied therapy at established Lethal Dose 10 (LD10) on tumor growth is monitored and diverse regimens are compared to assess their efficacy.
Grand Challenges
Viable, Healthy and Safe Communities
Establishing Multiple Myeloma drug screening platforms to predict patients’ response to therapy (Extension project)
The Abstract/proposal: Multiple Myeloma (MM) is a hematopoietic malignancy, which consists of the abnormal proliferation of one type of white blood cells, called plasma cells, in the bone marrow. MM affects patients aged 65 years or older and causes various health complications like bone lesions, anemia, and hypercalcemia. Around 58000 patients get diagnosed with MM yearly, around the globe.Effective assessment of the disease progression and its response to current as well as novel therapeutic regimens require a throughput in vivo setting. This research focuses on a novel zebrafish xenograft model to study MM. Zebrafish demonstrate characteristics advantageous for efficient research approaches, including easiness of imaging, capacity for high throughput assays, and genomic parallels with humans. The purpose of this project is to establish and validate a MM xenograft model in zebrafish as a study and drug screening in vivo platform.This project demonstrates how the Inhibitory concentrations (IC50s) of standard-of-care and novel drugs are tested in vitro using MM cell lines and primary MM patient-derived cells which are collected in collaboration with hematologists at WRH. Fluorescent MM cells are then injected into zebrafish larvae at 48 hours post fertilization. We observe successful MM engraftment at 96 hours post-injection (hpi). The rate of tumor formation and burden are analyzed using microscopy with computer software, up to 144hpi. The impact of applied therapy at established Lethal Dose 10 (LD10) on tumor growth is monitored and diverse regimens are compared to assess their efficacy.