Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

The Effects Of Curcumin On Erα, P53, And P21 In The Mcf-7 Breast Cancer Cell Line, Samantha E. Pfiffner, Mia Morse, Erin Hallman, Kaylin Whittaker, Aisha Zanib, Sumi Dinda Ph.D.

Medical Student Research Symposium

Curcumin is a golden-yellow flavonoid compound derived from the turmeric plant root that has been used in Chinese and Indian medicine for centuries. Curcumin has been shown to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, and because of this, has been gaining traction in the field of cancer research. Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women, and is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, next to lung cancer. Because of the prevalence and mortality of breast cancer, possible therapeutics must be investigated. Due to the beneficial properties of curcumin and pervasiveness of breast cancer, we have …

Significance Of Targeting Rna Polymerase I In Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma, Muhammad A. Bangash, Aun A. Bangash, Haider Ahsan, Sahir Alvi, Mudassier Ahmad, Alejandro Rincon, Samuel Owusu-Mireku, Bilal Hafeez

MEDI 9331 Scholarly Activities Clinical Years

Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (IHCC) is a much-overlooked cancer with a mortality rate that has increased throughout recent years, as stated by the American Cancer Society [1]. In the United States alone, there are an estimated 8,000 adults being diagnosed with IHCC every year, with a five-year survival rate of 9% [2]. Chemotherapy options for the treatment of IHCC include systemic chemotherapy such as gemcitabine, capecitabine, and oxaliplatin. These medications carry a wide array of adverse factors that may warrant discontinuation due to the detriment to the well-being of the patient. Additionally, a broad field of therapy that may also be used, …

Unlocking The Potential Of Kinase Targets In Cancer: Insights From Canceromicsnet, An Ai-Driven Approach To Drug Response Prediction In Cancer, Manali Singha, Limeng Pu, Gopal Srivastava, Xialong Ni, Brent A. Stanfield, Ifeanyi K. Uche, Paul J.F. Rider, Konstantin G. Kousoulas, J. Ramanujam, Michal Brylinski

School of Medicine Faculty Publications

Deregulated protein kinases are crucial in promoting cancer cell proliferation and driving malignant cell signaling. Although these kinases are essential targets for cancer therapy due to their involvement in cell development and proliferation, only a small part of the human kinome has been targeted by drugs. A comprehensive scoring system is needed to evaluate and prioritize clinically relevant kinases. We recently developed CancerOmicsNet, an artificial intelligence model employing graph-based algorithms to predict the cancer cell response to treatment with kinase inhibitors. The performance of this approach has been evaluated in large-scale benchmarking calculations, followed by the experimental validation of selected …

Cancer Cell-Specific Cgas/Sting Signaling Pathway In The Era Of Advancing Cancer Cell Biology, Vijay Kumar, Caitlin Bauer, John H. Stewart

School of Graduate Studies Faculty Publications

Pattern-recognition receptors (PRRs) are critical to recognizing endogenous and exogenous threats to mount a protective proinflammatory innate immune response. PRRs may be located on the outer cell membrane, cytosol, and nucleus. The cGAS/STING signaling pathway is a cytosolic PRR system. Notably, cGAS is also present in the nucleus. The cGAS-mediated recognition of cytosolic dsDNA and its cleavage into cGAMP activates STING. Furthermore, STING activation through its downstream signaling triggers different interferon-stimulating genes (ISGs), initiating the release of type 1 interferons (IFNs) and NF-κB-mediated release of proinflammatory cytokines and molecules. Activating cGAS/STING generates type 1 IFN, which may prevent cellular transformation …

Targeting Cgas/Sting Signaling-Mediated Myeloid Immune Cell Dysfunction In Time, Vijay Kumar, Caitlin Bauer, John H. Stewart

School of Graduate Studies Faculty Publications

Myeloid immune cells (MICs) are potent innate immune cells serving as first responders to invading pathogens and internal changes to cellular homeostasis. Cancer is a stage of altered cellular homeostasis that can originate in response to different pathogens, chemical carcinogens, and internal genetic/epigenetic changes. MICs express several pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) on their membranes, cytosol, and organelles, recognizing systemic, tissue, and organ-specific altered homeostasis. cGAS/STING signaling is a cytosolic PRR system for identifying cytosolic double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) in a sequence-independent but size-dependent manner. The longer the cytosolic dsDNA size, the stronger the cGAS/STING signaling activation with increased type 1 interferon …

Data Analysis Of A National Health And Nutrition Examination Survey (Nhanes) To Identify The Relationship Between Obesity And Cancer, Reyhaneh A. Yazdi, Ramona Stone

Public Health Sciences Student Work

Introduction: Obesity and cancer independently are two important causes of death in the USA. A growing number of studies shows that these two chronic illnesses are related.

Objective: To examine the relationship of cancer and obesity using BMI and Waist Circumference (WC) as indicators using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset.

Method: NHANES (2013-2014) dataset was used to obtain information on BMI, Waist Circumference (WC), and cancer (presence or absence) among the participants. The prevalence of obesity and cancer was tested with Pearson λ^2 test and the relationship of these two with education (5 levels) was examined …

Genetic Relationships And Therapeutic Options For Relapsed Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Hailie Shertzer

Senior Honors Theses

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common form of cancer among children and can be lethal to the adult population. Though 80% of patients with ALL reach complete remission after treatment, about 20% of those diagnosed fail to remain cancer-free. Genetic rearrangements are the hallmark of relapsed ALL, but the mechanism by which these rearrangements occur is still unclear. Recent research suggests these mutations may be detectable during initial diagnosis. If researchers are able to accurately assess the probability of relapse during diagnosis by analyzing the genome of the leukemic cells, the likelihood of administering effective therapy would increase. …

Rare Malignant Peritoneum Mesothelioma Masquerading With Respiratory Manifestation, Ravish Patel, Pratikkumar Vekaria, Devin Vaishnani, Johnnie Mao, Chandrika Raiyani, Marvin Vaishnani, Tejas Raiyani

Internal Medicine

Mesothelioma is a rare and aggressive cancer that affects the linings of the pleura, peritoneum and pericardium. Pleural involvement is however most common. Malignant Peritoneal mesothelioma (MPM) is a cancer developing in the lining of the peritoneum, which is extremely rare. Most MPM cases are caused by asbestos exposure. Common symptoms of MPM include abdominal distension, abdominal pain, swelling or tenderness and constipation or diarrhea, with most common being abdominal swelling. MPM is difficult to diagnose due to its vague, nonspecific symptoms.

Choking On Adenocarcinoma, Andre Sahakian Md, Rajesh Gulati Md

Internal Medicine

No abstract provided.

Nivolumab Induced Myasthenia Gravis, Elizabeth Henderson Md, Imad Ikhawn Md, Dharti R. Patel Md, Monicka Felix

Internal Medicine

No abstract provided.

1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D Mediated Hypercalcemia As An Initial Presentation In A Patient With Undiagnosed B-Cell Non-Hodgkin’S Lymphoma, Ranjit Banwait Md, Jawad Noor Md, Jing He Md, Xiaolong Liu Md, Liang Sun Md

Internal Medicine

In non-Hodgkin's lymphoma the findings of hypercalcemia as an initial presentation is extremely rare (<3% of cases). Here we report a 67 year-old man who presented with ST changes secondary to hypercalcemia in the setting of B-cell lymphoma.

Health Effects Of A Vegan Diet And Pediatric Cancer Prevention, Lindsay Wisehart

Senior Honors Theses

Veganism is a diet which excludes consumption of all animal products. With proper planning and vitamin supplementation to ensure adequate intake of protein, fat, calcium, zinc, iron, and vitamins D and B12, a vegan diet is widely accepted as suitable for growing and developing children. The decreased levels of dairy, red and processed meats, fat, and protein, and increased levels of fruits and vegetables characteristic of a vegan diet have been shown to reduce risk of mortality and a number of diseases including adult and childhood cancer. Childhood cancer is the second leading cause of childhood death in Western society. …

Extracellular Vesicles From Thyroid Carcinoma: The New Frontier Of Liquid Biopsy, Germana Rappa, Caterina Puglisi, Mark F. Santos, Stefano Forte, Lorenzo Memeo, Aurelio Lorico

College of Osteopathic Medicine (TUN) Publications and Research

The diagnostic approach to thyroid cancer is one of the most challenging issues in oncology of the endocrine system because of its high incidence (3.8% of all new cancer cases in the US) and the difficulty to distinguish benign from malignant non-functional thyroid nodules and establish the cervical lymph node involvement during staging. Routine diagnosis of thyroid nodules usually relies on a fine-needle aspirate biopsy, which is invasive and often inaccurate. Therefore, there is an urgent need to identify novel, accurate, and non-invasive diagnostic procedures. Liquid biopsy, as a non-invasive approach for the detection of diagnostic biomarkers for early tumor …

Yap And The Hippo Pathway In Pediatric Cancer., Atif Ahmed, Abdalla D. Mohamed, Melissa Gener, Weijie Li, Eugenio Taboada

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

The Hippo pathway is an important signaling pathway that controls cell proliferation and apoptosis. It is evolutionarily conserved in mammals and is stimulated by cell-cell contact, inhibiting cell proliferation in response to increased cell density. During early embryonic development, the Hippo signaling pathway regulates organ development and size, and its functions result in the coordinated balance between proliferation, apoptosis, and differentiation. Its principal effectors, YAP and TAZ, regulate signaling by the embryonic stem cells and determine cell fate and histogenesis. Dysfunction of this pathway contributes to cancer development in adults and children. Emerging studies have shed light on the upregulation …

Selective Action Of Aqueous Maté Extract On Human Breast Cancer, Catherine Nguyen, Kenisha Nisbett, Vanessa Halvorsen, Calvin He, Amina Sadik

College of Osteopathic Medicine (TUN) Publications and Research

Ilex paraguariensis, Yerba Maté, is a subtropical plant native to South America, where it is consumed several times daily as a tea made with roasted leaves. Several studies have been conducted to elucidate the beneficial effects of this plant. A recent study has shown that saponins isolated from Yerba Maté extract induce apoptosis in human colon cancer cells, while another study indicated that the consumption of Maté tea causes higher incidence of esophageal cancer. Our study looked into the effects Yerba Maté extract have on human breast cancer cells and non-cancer cells from the same tissue. The findings show …

A Novel Caspase 8 Selective Small Molecule Potentiates Trail-Induced Cell Death, Octavian Bucur, Gabriel Gaidos, Achani Yatawara, Bodvael Pennarun, Chamila Rupasinghe, Jérémie Roux, Stefan Andrei, Bingqian Guo, Alexandra Panaitiu, Maria Pellegrini, Dale Mierke, Roya Khosravi-Far

Dartmouth Scholarship

Recombinant soluble TRAIL and agonistic antibodies against TRAIL receptors (DR4 and DR5) are currently being created for clinical cancer therapy, due to their selective killing of cancer cells and high safety characteristics. However, resistance to TRAIL and other targeted therapies is an important issue facing current cancer research field. An attractive strategy to sensitize resistant malignancies to TRAIL-induced cell death is the design of small molecules that target and promote caspase 8 activation. For the first time, we describe the discovery and characterization of a small molecule that directly binds caspase 8 and enhances its activation when combined with TRAIL, …

Killing Adherent And Nonadherent Cancer Cells With The Plasma Pencil, Mounir Laroussi, Soheila Mohades, Nazir Barekzi

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The application of low temperature plasmas in biology and medicine may lead to a paradigm shift in the way various diseases can be treated without serious side effects. Low temperature plasmas generated in gas mixtures that contain oxygen or air produce several chemically reactive species that have important biological implications when they interact with eukaryotic or prokaryotic cells. Here, a review of the effects of low temperature plasma generated by the plasma pencil on different cancerous cells is presented. Results indicate that plasma consistently shows a delayed killing effect that is dose dependent. In addition, there is some evidence that …

Modeling The Adaptive Immune Response To Mutation-Generated Antigens, Rory J. Geyer

University Scholar Projects

Somatic mutations may drive tumorigenesis or lead to new, immunogenic epitopes (neoantigens). The immune system is thought to represses neoplastic growths through the recognition of neoantigens presented only by tumor cells. To study mutations as well as the immune response to mutation-generated antigens, we have created a conditional knockin mouse line with a gene encoding, 5’ to 3’, yellow fluorescent protein (YFP), ovalbumin (which is processed to the immunologically recognizable peptide, SIINFEKL), and cyan fluorescent protein (CFP), or, YFP-ovalbumin-CFP. A frame shift mutation has been created at the 5’ end of the ovalbumin gene, hence YFP should always be expressed, …

The Spatial Distribution Of Cancer Incidence In Fars Province: A Gis-Based Analysis Of Cancer Registry Data, Ali Goli, Mahbobeh Oroei, Mehdi Jalalpour, Hossein Faramarzi, Mehrdad Askarian

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Background: Cancer is a major health problem in the developing countries. Variations of its incidence rate among geographical areas are due to various contributing factors. This study was performed to assess the spatial patterns of cancer incidence in the Fars Province, based on cancer registry data and to determine geographical clusters.

Methods: In this cross sectional study, the new cases of cancer were recorded from 2001 to 2009. Crude incidence rate was estimated based on age groups and sex in the counties of the Fars Province. Age standardized incidence rates (ASR) per 100,000 was calculated in each year. …

A Generalized Beta Model For The Age Distribution Of Cancers: Application To Pancreatic And Kidney Cancer., Tengiz Mdzinarishvili, Michael X. Gleason, Leo Kinarsky, Simon Sherman

Journal Articles: Eppley Institute

The relationships between cancer incidence rates and the age of patients at cancer diagnosis are a quantitative basis for modeling age distributions of cancer. The obtained model parameters are needed to build rigorous statistical and biological models of cancer development. In this work, a new mathematical model, called the Generalized Beta (GB) model is proposed. Confidence intervals for parameters of this model are derived from a regression analysis. The GB model was used to approximate the incidence rates of the first primary, microscopically confirmed cases of pancreatic cancer (PC) and kidney cancer (KC) that served as a test bed for …

Does Unemployment Decrease Cancer Mortality?, Benjamin Torres Galick

Economics Honors Projects

Recent research indicates that healthier lifestyles during recessions decrease the most common U.S. mortalities, but not cancer. However, they combine specific cancer mortalities with different progressions into one, possibly obscuring cancer’s link to unemployment. This paper estimates a fixed-effects regression model on unemployment and the nine most prevalent cancers between 1988 and 2002 using state-level panel data. Five cancers and total cancer are procyclical, and suggest that unemployment affects both incidence and gestation for some cancers. Consistent with the medical literature, this paper contradicts previous economic research and suggests that behavioral factors significantly impact cancer mortality.