Lab #1 – Amy Ferketich, PhD, Associate Professor, Cancer Prevention and Control
Amy Ferketich’s group is engaged in public health research related to tobacco control policy. Students will learn the basics about observational research, collect data in the field, and analyze existing data from an adolescent cohort study. The field methods will involve visiting retail stores that sell tobacco products (gas stations, convenience stores) and completing an assessment of the marketing and advertising practices at the point of sale. The existing data that students will analyze come from the Buckeye Teen Health Study, which is a longitudinal cohort study of 1220 adolescent boys and their families in Franklin and rural Appalachian counties in Ohio. The goal of the study is to examine the influences of tobacco advertising, marketing, and imagery on initiation tobacco use and trajectories to addiction. The projects are part of the OSU Center of Excellence in Regulatory Tobacco Science (OSU-CERTS), which is funded by the Food and Drug Administration. In addition to field work and completing an independent research project, students will attend weekly team meetings and journal/book clubs, meet senior researchers in OSU-CERTS, and work with OSU undergraduate and graduate students.
Lab #2 – Dan Jones, MD, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair, Division of Molecular Pathology
The Clinical Genomics Laboratory of the James Hospital and the associated research laboratories of Dan Jones, MD, PhD provide opportunities to learn cutting edge genomic technologies (NGS, transcript profiling and a variety of molecular techniques) and bioinformatics analysis of cancer genomes. Research work in the laboratory include projects in lung cancer, leukemias and breast cancer. The laboratory is located in the Polaris section of Columbus so student would need car transportation or close proximity to the Polaris area for participation. Students with focus on computer science and/or coding skills are welcome.
Lab #3 – Jennifer L. Leight, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Cancer-associated fibroblasts are the predominant cell type within the tumor microenvironment. They contribute to cancer progression in a several ways, including secretion of growth factors and remodeling of the extracellular matrix. Previous work has suggested that low oxygen levels, hypoxia, can drive the cancer-associated fibroblast phenotype. Since the availability of oxygen varies greatly throughout the tumor, with the tumor core often very hypoxic, it is important to understand what role hypoxia plays in controlling cancer-associated fibroblast behavior. Currently, both the mechanism by which hypoxia influences cancer-associated fibroblasts and the ultimate effects on the extracellular matrix remain unclear. This project will focus on characterizing the changes that occur to the cancer microenvironment when fibroblasts are exposed to hypoxia. The student will gain experience in experimental design, scientific literature evaluation, hypothesis development and testing, and in vitro cell biology techniques including cell culture, immunostaining, microscopy, and western blotting while being part of an engaging interdisciplinary group of biologists and biomedical engineers.
Lab #4 – Yan Zhang, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Informatics
The Zhang Lab of Computational Genomics and Proteomics welcomes application for summer research opportunities. https://medicine.osu.edu/bmi/people/yan_zhang/Pages/index.aspx
Potential projects for summer internships: Finding functional elements in gene deserts.
Gene deserts are the regions in the genome that lack protein-coding genes. However, “non-coding” is not exactly equal to “non-functional”. There are many genomic elements located in the non-coding regions, but play regulatory roles of gene expression, and they maybe oncomodulary (i.e. they might modulate the cancer initiation and progression). In this work, we are interested in finding these functional elements by integrating different types of data, for example, DNA sequences, next generation sequencing and microarray data. We have several potential projects that welcome intern students’ involvement.
Project 1: Tool development - Assist in computational tool development for conservation analysis of potentially functional elements.
Project 2: Data analysis - Integrate DNA sequences, genome annotations and expression profiles to identify potentially functional elements in the genome.
Lab #5 – Electra Paskett, PhD, Marion N. Rowley Professor of Cancer Research and Director, Division of Cancer Prevention and Control; Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine; Professor, Division of Epidemiology, College of Public Health; Associate Director for Population Sciences, Comprehensive Cancer Center
Project: Community Initiative towards Improving Equity and Health Status (CITIES)
The OSU Center for Cancer Health Equity Summer Research Experience provides undergraduate students with opportunities to build research skills and learn about Community Based Participatory Research to better understand health disparities. The selected student will work with their mentor, Dr. Electra Paskett, on developing an independent research project using data from Community Initiative towards Improving Equity and Health Status (CITIES) project. The study sought to better understand overall health of people living in Ohio and to see if what people do, how they feel, and where they live affect their health. Over a thousand participants, age 21 to 74, living in Ohio took part in the project.
The student will conduct data analyses to produce descriptive statistics to address one of the following potential research/analytic questions:
The student will also attend seminars and workshops designed to complement learning and participate in a weekly journal club. At the completion of the internship, the student will submit a written paper describing his/her independent research project, give a poster presentation of the project, and give an oral presentation of the project to the Center investigators and other students.
Lab #6 – Lawrence “Drew” Shirley, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology
The Shirley laboratory broadly focuses on the role of cancer-associated fibroblasts in papillary thyroid cancer, focusing specifically on the functional effects of the serine-threonine kinase ILK in this cell type. For in vitro studies, we have been developing novel primary fibroblast cultures from resected thyroid nodule specimens, both murine and human. We have performed siRNA knockdown of ILK in these cells to show a functional role, and continue to perform these experiments. In future studies, we plan to perform co-culture and conditioned medium experiments with the fibroblasts and immortalized thyroid cancer cells. With the assistance of the pathology core we perform immunohistochemistry on thyroid cancer samples to assess for expression of ILK as well as markers for immune cell infiltrate and fibroblast activation. We perform cytokine/chemokine arrays to assess how ILK affects secretion of the factors. With the assistance of the genomics core at OSU we are investigating genetic signatures of thyroid cancer-associated fibroblasts. Finally, we plan to perform transgenic, fibroblast-specific knockout of ILK in a murine model of thyroid cancer to assess for effect on thyroid cancer progression. Additionally, Dr. Shirley has clinical projects assessing short and long term surgical outcomes after thyroid and parathyroid surgery. Students who enter our lab would learn skills in both basic and translational research and play an active role in data collection and analysis.
Lab #7 – Zobeida Cruz-Monserrate, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Director of the GHN Molecular and Cellular Biology Program/Laboratory
We are studying the role of obesity and how factors from the adipose tissue promote the risk of developing pancreas cancer by sending signals to the tumor microenvironment which affects inflammatory signals. To this end we are working on developing novel interventions that will potentially lead to the prevention of pancreatic cancer.
We use pre-clinical mouse models as well as in vitro tools in the laboratory for which undergraduates could benefit in learning several techniques that can be apply to answer many scientific questions.
Here is my pubmed link in case it is useful to the students. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/myncbi/zobeida.cruz-monserrate.1/bibliography/49329313/public/?sort=date&direction=descending
Lab #8 – Megan Roberts, PhD, Assistant Professor, College of Public Health
We have a cross-disciplinary research opportunity available concerning how experience sampling, social media use, and fMRI can be used to predict health outcomes in the domains of smoking and eating. This is part of a larger project focused on the intersection of public health and brain science research. The primary mentor for this project will be Dr. Megan Roberts, a social scientist in OSU’s College of Public Health. The student will be co-mentored by Dr. Dylan Wagner, a social cognitive neuroscientist in OSU’s department of psychology. The student will have opportunities to collect and analyze data, shadow fMRI scanning sessions, conduct literature reviews, interact with graduate students and faculty, attend lab meetings, and be mentored on an independent research project. We are particularly interested in a students who has taken classes in research methods and statistics for the social sciences. Any background in programming or computer science is a plus.