Overview
Topic status: We're looking for students to study this topic.
Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecological cancers worldwide. In Australia, each year 1,200 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 850 die from this disease. Overall ~75% of ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed at a stage when tumour cells have spread into the peritoneal cavity and form multicellular aggregates to survive. These patients are given chemotherapy composed of a combination of different anti-cancer drugs. Most patients respond but subsequently resistance to chemotherapy occurs and the outcome is then very poor. Ovarian cancer cells will further spread into the peritoneum, attach to the mesothelial cell layer, invade into the underlying extracellular matrix and grow secondary tumors which is clearly the critical step leading to the poor outcome. However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms that support the dissemination of tumour cells within the peritoneum and factors leading to chemoresistance. Hence, novel bioengineered cell culture systems have been developed to study formation of multicellular aggregates and their chemoresistance.
Hypothesis: Kallikrein proteases, in particular kallikrein 7, promote multicellular aggregation via the integrin, signalling pathway, in particular -5-1, and chemoresistance to clinically administered anti-cancer drugs, such as paclitaxel, in
human ovarian cancer.
- Aim 1: To assess tumour growth of ovarian cancer cells cultured within synthetic and naturally-derived 3-D matrices compared to cancer cells injected into the peritoneum
- Aim 2: To study the responsiveness of ovarian cancer cells towards anti-cancer drugs
Methods and techniques that will be developed in the course of this project:
- Cell culture to grow cancer cells within a three-dimensional cell culture system
- Analyses of tumor volume by weighting all peritoneal organs and the tumour
- Immunochistochemistry (IHC) to measure protein expression
- Polymerase chain reactions (PCR) to detect gene expression
- Study level
- PhD, Honours
- Supervisors
- QUT
- Organisational unit
Science and Engineering Faculty
- Research area
- Contact
- Please contact the supervisor.
Dr Daniela Loessner
Professor Judith Clements
