Genetic Manipulation of Mammary Stem Cells to Reconcile Tumor Stem Cell Theory with Breast Cancer Heterogeneity

Abstract : This report serves as a progress report on the second year of my training grant. I have completed my fifth year as a graduate student in Dartmouth Medical School's Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, part of the Program in Experimental Molecular Medicine (PEMM). Dr. James DiRenzo serves as my mentor and chair of my thesis committee. Training Tasks I completed all required coursework and passed the qualifying exam, consisting of a written grant proposal and its oral defense. Senior members of the DiRenzo lab trained me in mouse handling, histology and tumor pathology. I was also trained to isolate mammary epithelial cell populations by fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS), and have developed some of my own protocols for FACS-based experiments. Dr. DiRenzo has also trained me in the surgical technique of transplanting mammary epithelial cells into cleared mammary fat pads. In the past year I have also worked with our lab manager, Pratima Cherukuri, M.Sc, to develop a chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) protocols to study the binding of transcription factors and transcriptional machinery at specific loci.