{"id":1684,"date":"2016-06-23T10:22:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T10:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/?p=1684"},"modified":"2023-09-26T13:24:02","modified_gmt":"2023-09-26T13:24:02","slug":"h-sc-biology-students-conducting-melanoma-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/2016\/06\/23\/h-sc-biology-students-conducting-melanoma-research\/","title":{"rendered":"H-SC Biology Students Conducting Melanoma Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This summer two Hampden-Sydney College Biology majors, James Lau \u201917 and Brant Boucher \u201917, are conducting melanoma research alongside Elliott Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Kristian M. Hargadon \u201901.\u00a0 Previous research in the Hargadon laboratory has shown a role for the FOXC2 transcription factor in promoting melanoma growth and metastasis, and James and Brant are currently investigating different aspects of FOXC2 as it relates to melanoma progression.\u00a0 Using a mouse melanoma model, James is comparing gene and protein expression profiles of a highly aggressive melanoma cell line that expresses high levels of FOXC2 versus a CRISPR-Cas9 gene-edited version of this melanoma in which the <em>Foxc2<\/em> gene has been disrupted.\u00a0 This work will provide insights into genes that may be positively or negatively regulated by FOXC2 and will improve our understanding of how FOXC2 promotes aggressive behavior in cancer cells.\u00a0 In related work, Brant is investigating a novel gene silencing approach that aims to shut down <em>Foxc2 <\/em>gene expression specifically in melanoma cells.\u00a0 The ability to turn this gene off specifically in melanoma cells would offer an exciting opportunity to prevent the tumor-promoting functions of this gene in cancer cells without impacting FOXC2\u2019s normal function in healthy cells.\u00a0 Both James and Brant have already been accepted to medical school and will begin following their graduation from H-SC in 2017!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1685\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/06\/DSC00781.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1685\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1685\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/06\/DSC00781-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"James Lau '17 performing flow cytometric analysis of B16-F1 melanoma cells containing functional versus disrupted Foxc2 genes.\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1685\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Lau &#8217;17 performing flow cytometric analysis of B16-F1 melanoma cells containing functional versus disrupted Foxc2 genes.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1686\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/06\/DSC00783.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1686\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1686\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/06\/DSC00783-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Brant Boucher '17 isolating RNA from tumor cells to assess melanoma-specific silencing of the Foxc2 gene.\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1686\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brant Boucher &#8217;17 setting up a real-time PCR reaction\u00a0to assess melanoma-specific silencing of the Foxc2 gene.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This summer two Hampden-Sydney College Biology majors, James Lau \u201917 and Brant Boucher \u201917, are conducting melanoma research alongside Elliott Associate Professor of Biology Dr. Kristian M. Hargadon \u201901.\u00a0 Previous research in the Hargadon laboratory has shown a role for &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/2016\/06\/23\/h-sc-biology-students-conducting-melanoma-research\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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-1684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684","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=1684"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2061,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1684\/revisions\/2061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hsc.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}