Week 7: Wrapping Up

With the immersion term nearing its close, organoids have dictated my schedule. Synthesizing, feeding, degrading, and analyzing organoids have become routine, but the questions they are answering are exciting and hopefully prove to be impactful. 

These questions primarily either focus on better modeling the tumor microenvironment or treating cancer in the context of the tumor microenvironment. For the initial aim, my primary question has involved the incorporation of a supporting stromal cell to further mimic the cellular composition of lymphoma. In a similar vein, I also created organoids with all of the lymphocyte and supporting cells of a tonsil to test similar changes from a development standpoint.

For the latter aim of treating cancer in the context of the tumor microenvironment, I am testing the response of different integrin-specific lymphoma organoids and conventional 2D cell layer to several doses of a currently experimental drug. A differential response across the various microenviromental conditions would display the importance of a patient’s tumor microenvironment in choosing the appropriate treatment. I am also testing the effect of these specific microenvironmental cues on downstream signaling, such as nF-kB signaling, to further test whether certain inhibitors would be more efficacious in microenvironment with specific compositions. 

With all of these experiments in the pipeline, it’ll be exciting to see what the data dictates by the end of the immersion term.