{"id":1537,"date":"2015-06-15T12:46:37","date_gmt":"2015-06-15T12:46:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/?p=1537"},"modified":"2023-09-26T13:30:21","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T13:30:21","slug":"two-h-sc-students-conducting-melanoma-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/2015\/06\/15\/two-h-sc-students-conducting-melanoma-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Two H-SC Students Conducting Melanoma Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

This summer two H-SC students, Jefferson Thompson ’16 and Travis Goodloe 16′, are conducting melanoma research in the laboratory of Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Kristian M. Hargadon ’01.\u00a0 In addition to\u00a0support from the College’s Honors Council and a Commonwealth Health Research Board grant to Dr. Hargadon, both students have also received external funding for their work.\u00a0 Travis Goodloe received a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research for a project entitled “Validation\u00a0of a Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR)-based Method for Detecting\u00a0Lymph Node Metastasis by Melanoma Cells.”\u00a0 He is developing an assay to measure the spread of regional melanomas into tumor-draining lymph nodes, and this work will serve as a foundation for future studies that aim to investigate how lymph node involvement by melanoma cells impacts the induction of immune responses to this tumor.\u00a0 Jefferson Thompson received a Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges Undergraduate Science Research Fellowship for a\u00a0project entitled “Generation of a Foxc2 Gene\u00a0Knockout Murine Melanoma Cell Line via CRISPR-Cas9 Genome Editing\u00a0Technology.”\u00a0 CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing has revolutionized the field of genetic engineering since its discovery in 2013, and Jefferson is the first student to employ this technology at\u00a0Hampden-Sydney College.\u00a0 He will be editing the nucleotide sequence of the Foxc2 gene in a mouse melanoma cell line so that the protein encoded by this gene is no longer produced.\u00a0 This “knockout” cell line will be used in future studies to investigate the role of the FOXC2 transcription factor in regulating melanoma metastasis,\u00a0and those studies will utilize the metastasis assay being developed by Travis.\u00a0 If the FOXC2 protein is shown to promote melanoma spread to lymph nodes, it may\u00a0serve as both a\u00a0clinical marker for the progression of this cancer as well as a novel therapeutic target for cancer treatments designed to eradicate metastatic melanoma.\u00a0 Both Jefferson and Travis plan to attend medical school upon their graduation from H-SC!<\/p>\n

\"Jefferson<\/a>

Jefferson Thompson ’16 (right) and Travis Goodloe ’16 (left) hard at work in the lab!<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
\"Jefferson<\/a>

Jefferson has become a pro at gel electrophoresis!<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\"Travis<\/a>

Travis dissecting a melanoma tumor-bearing mouse!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This summer two H-SC students, Jefferson Thompson ’16 and Travis Goodloe 16′, are conducting melanoma research in the laboratory of Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Kristian M. Hargadon ’01.\u00a0 In addition to\u00a0support from the College’s Honors Council and a Commonwealth … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2085,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1537\/revisions\/2085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}