Shreeya D's Senior Project Blog
 |
Project Title: Triggering an Effective Immune Response in Cancer Therapy BASIS Advisor: Johnson Truong Internship Location: University of Arizona School of Medicine Onsite Mentor: Sharma Prashant |
Project Abstract
In this project, I will be focusing on cancer immunotherapy, a therapy used to treat cancer patients that involves or uses components of the immune system to recognize and eliminate cancer cells. This will mainly be done by using checkpoint inhibitors. These inhibitors release the brakes on the immune system, allowing T cells to attack cancer cells more effectively across multiple cancer types, attacking anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies, and leading to regulatory approvals for clinical use. This methodology can provide insights into each unique patient’s individual cancer- its genetic makeup, its behavior, and its interactions with the immune system- which doctors can the use to determine the approach most likely to benefits a particular person.
Immunotherapy…To the Stage!
Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog. I would like to take this moment to really thank everyone for keeping up with my blog posts, the ups and downs of this project, and everything in between. As my concluding blog post, I would like to give some advice for those who are interested in... Read More
Final Touches
Hello everyone and welcome back to my weekly blog. As we are wrapping up the research projects, I am taking this week to make some edits to my presentation and final product. However, over the last few days, I realized that there were some additional things that I wanted to focus on as I approached... Read More
Techno-savvy or not?
Hi everyone, welcome back to the weekly updates. Over the past weeks, I've been making edits to the final research presentation with the template to make sure the words are visible on the auditorium screen, and I've been exploring some websites for my animation video. For my presentation, I wanted to focus more on immunotherapy's... Read More
Final lap
Hello everyone and welcome back to the weekly check in. For the past few days, I have been focusing on building my final product and a presentation of my finding in this research project. For my final product, I am planning on creating an animated video of the process of immunotherapy, its efficiency, and some... Read More
Update for Labs
Hey everyone, welcome back to the weekly check-in. So, recently I've been struggling to get into the lab, due to not being a University of Arizona student, but I am starting to develop my final product and presentation for the research. Throughout this, I plan on focusing on the process of what immunotherapy is and... Read More
Some blocks
Hey everyone, welcome back to the weekly checkin. For the past few weeks I've been focusing on research and dabbling in the lab settings, but this week I have gone back to background research to clear up some basics. I wanted to focus on the question: "Is this therapy a viable method of treating cancer?"... Read More
Advancing up
Hey everyone, welcome back to the weekly check in. Last week, I was able gain some experience in the lab; this week, I mainly spent looking over some advancements in immunotherapy and how it might increase its longevity as a treatment. One of these advancements includes using nanoparticles, particles around the size of 1 to... Read More
To the Laboratory!
Hey everyone! Welcome back to the weekly check in. This week I began working in the lab, doing more hands-on activities and monitoring the cultured T-cells. While working in the lab, I was able to understand how crucial the lab work is to advancing the field of immunotherapy. For instance, researchers spend hours scrutinizing cancer... Read More
Why?
Hi everyone, welcome back to the weekly check in. So, I wanted to focus in a bit more on the "why" this week, specifically why immunotherapy over chemo or even antibiotics. Despite immunotherapy being a fairly recent method, it has garnered attention and praise for its advantages over traditional treatments like chemotherapy. One of the... Read More
Chimeric Dream Made Possible
Welcome back guys! If you're new to the blog, welcome! As for this week's update, I took a deeper dive into a specific treatment method of immunotherapy: CAR-T Therapy. Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy involves reprogramming a patient's own immune cells, specifically T cells, to recognize and attack cancer cells. Furthermore, CAR-T therapy... Read More
Cancer Sucks… Here’s how we (try) to treat it
Throughout the week, I spent time doing additional research for the process of immunotherapy and its developments. The concept of using the immune system to combat cancer has its origins in the early 20th century when researchers observed occasional spontaneous relapses in cancer patients. These observations hinted at the possibility that the immune system might... Read More
Welcome!
As a formal introduction, my name is Shreeya Desai and I am a senior here, at Basis Phoenix, and I am researching on Triggering an Effective Immune Response in Cancer Therapy. My motivation to delve into this area stems from recognizing the potential of harnessing the body’s immune system to combat cancer. My envisioned research... Read More