Probing synthetic lethality in glioblastoma

Description of projects available to graduate students:
Background: Glioblastoma, like many cancers, exhibit common genetic defects. These include defects in metabolism and specific NAD+ biosynthesis pathways essential for cell growth and the response to chemotherapy. Such defects can be exploited to induce cytotoxicity in the tumor but not in the surrounding normal tissue.


Project Description: This project will use small molecule inhibitors of DNA repair and lentiviral-based shRNA to exploit a defect in the de novo pathway of NAD+ biosynthesis in glioblastoma.

Techniques graduate student will learn:
Human cell culture, gene expression and knockdown via lentivirus-mediated expression of cDNA or shRNA, qRT-PCR, protein analysis via western blotting.