Shauna is now back from Rome and has returned to the lab in the UK for the final stretch of her PhD. She has only a year left of her project, which includes the time she will be writing up her findings of the previous three year’s work. This is now crunch time for getting in those last experiments – which she is keenly finishing up!
Shauna had a wonderful time in Rome, where she spent three months learning with Dr Mara Vinci and her team at Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital about Imaging Mass Cytometry (IMC) which will show certain key markers in situ within the tumour tissue, as well as learning from Mara’s considerable modelling knowledge to explore our GC models more. This and her earlier trip to Boston were highlights of Shauna’s time studying, where she not only got to do exciting and cutting-edge science, but also meet new people, experience new cultures and ways of life.
After her time in Rome and with the teaching of Giulia Pericoli, she has brought back several skills that she can further utilise in this project within the UK. This includes exciting invasion assays and even the extraction of RNA from invading cells to see what they are expressing during this process. These are experiments that could be key to understanding GC and will allow us to explore a key aspect of this disease; its highly invasive nature.
We have been very lucky that recently one of our collaborators – David Castel at Institut de Cancérologie Gustave Roussy – has given us some more models of GC that his team have developed in his lab. We have also been able to establish another in Rome during Shauna’s time there. Modelling GC has been a trickier element of working with this disease, and we’re very excited to have more to undertake experiments with.
Shauna is keen to repeat several key assays on these models in order to see if we can establish a pattern within GC with regards to invasive and migratory capabilities. If this can be established, then we can begin to target these similarities between GC cases, but also the differences between GC and other gliomas.
We have also begun to refine our analysis of the single-cell RNA-sequencing with our colleagues in Boston. We are in the privileged position to have many different samples as part of this cohort and have considerable overlap with our IMC – providing both RNA-sequencing data and marker expression for the same cases. This overlap will provide us with comprehensive understanding of not only what is happening with the cells, but also how that relates to expression within the tumour itself.
We are still in the process of acquiring the IMC images as this is a lengthy and time-consuming process. Without the expertise of Lucia Petrilli in Mara Vinci’s team, this could not be run as smoothly and quickly as it is. Once these images are acquired, we can begin to analyse key markers that also occur in the single cell RNA-sequencing. We have also begun to add makers to our IMC panel from the preliminary findings about GC seen in the genomic data, and we hope to add more from the single-cell RNA sequencing as we find them.
Despite this initial studentship coming to an end within the year, this is still very exciting as we move toward tying up and finalising aspects of lab-work in this project. But it is also exciting due to what we have set up for the future by beginning this extensive work, which will lead to more projects and better understanding of this cancer. In the next few months, more of what we have unveiled during these three years will come to fruition, shining a light on GC that has been needed for so long - and from this - we look forward to the subsequent work that will allow us to begin defeating it. We cannot wait to further update you on the findings The Rudy A Menon Foundation has made possible.
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