Pharmacology Research

OK, so I've been promising for a long time that I would post on here about the lab I'm rotating in right now, so here's what's going on:

Dr. Riese's lab is in the MCMP Dept (Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology), in the Purdue Cancer Center. Like so many cancer labs, they study cell signaling pathways. In particular, they study a receptor called ErbB4, which is one of the receptors in the Epidermal Growth Factor family.

Interestingly enough, ErbB4, which is present in normal epithelial cells, is missing in many tumors. The receptor has totally disappeared in these cancerous cells, and it has been shown that re-introducing this receptor into these cell lines (and then activating it) leads to tumor suppression. Dr. Riese's lab is trying to figure out how ErbB4 works as a tumor suppressor. In other words, they're asking, "What is the series of reactions in the cell that gets you from start (receptor activation) to finish (cell death)?" Once this important question is answered, people can begin designing drugs to affect various parts of this pathway, which will create a whole new class of cancer therapy options.

I am currently working with a 6th year student, Rich, who is studying ErbB4 in prostate cancer cells. We have been doing a lot of DNA manipulation to build some mutated forms of ErbB4 and get them stably expressed in cells. Without getting too technical, these mutated receptors have been altered at specific spots so we can study the function of that particular part of the receptor. Any of you who have worked in science know that in my 8 week rotation there's no way I could accomplish this. This part of Rich's project was underway long before I came into the lab and he will still be working on it after I leave, but that's what I'm helping with. :)

So, yeah, feel free to ask questions, I hope it makes sense! I'll post again when I move into my next rotation too, which is also in cancer biology but is in the Chemistry Dept and is quite a different project.