Grant: Doctoral Research Award-PA: Ionizing Radiation - Medical Uses and Health Effects

Many anti-cancer therapies, such as ionization radiation, work by damaging DNA. Cancer cells are often more sensitive to DNA damage than normal cells because they divide faster than normal cells. However, DNA damaging therapies can also have toxic side effects in normal cells (eg. causing hair loss, fatigue). Tumours can also develop resistance to therapeutic treatment. The aim of my project is to identify conditions that better sensitize cancer cells to DNA damaging therapies and reduce side efffects. Certain conditions of cancer drugs may be able to overcome resistance. Other drug conditions may make tumour cells more sensitive to DNA damage and allow for lower doses, which would reduce side effects. There are tens of thousands of possible combinations of drug therapies that need to be screened to identify effective combinations. In my project, I am using a simple model organism, yeast, to test thousands of possible drug and DNA damaging therapy combinations to identify which are effective in killing cells with gene defects found specifically in tumours. In the next step, I am going to test the handful of successful combinations of drugs and DNA damaging therapy (discovered in yeast) on human cells to identify effective combinations that may be useful in treating cancer cells