This week, Eleana and I have started our experiments to investigate the relationship between T cell mechanosensing and susceptibility to radiation-induced exhaustion. Earlier this week, we extracted T cells from mouse spleens and lymph nodes and performed a 3 day activation process. Today, we irradiated glioblastoma cells and are coculturing them with the activated T cells over the weekend. We have also been preparing hydrogels for our experiment next week that will look at the direct impact of radiation on T cell survival and exhaustion and how this is modulated by activating T cells on different substrates, rather than looking at the indirect impacts through coculture with irradiated cancer cells.
I was able to attend the Meyer Cancer Center Basic Research Group Meeting this week and saw two talks that in general described how specific genetic changes in cancer can be targeted to provide personalized treatment in mouse and patient-derived organoid models of cancer. It was very interesting to compare more clinically-focused research seminars to the ones I have attended in Ithaca, specifically with the types of questions clinicians were asking the presenters to make sure the research considered generalizability and patient translation. I spent time Thursday and Friday shadowing in breast pathology and got to see the usual analysis of patient biopsies and lumpectomies. This week had some unusual cases, so it was very interesting to compare to what I saw last time I was shadowing and also to the images in histology/pathology textbooks. It again surprised me how heterogeneous breast tissue is, and how wildly different each case appears even for the same condition.
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