Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Within the human body, cells receive messages from their surroundings to control a variety of cellular functions, such as cell growth, survival, and movement. These messages are received by molecules on the cell surface (receptors) which convey the signals into the cell to alter cell activity. This signalling system is required for normal tissue development, however when this goes awry in cancer cells, the disease can grow and spread. We are interested in a cell surface receptor named RET, which can cause cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body. There are multiple ways cancer can spread, one of which is when cancer cells invade nearby nerves (perineural invasion). Perineural invasion is prevalent in colorectal cancers, where it causes pain and is associated with poor patient outcomes. Thus, our goals are to identify how RET and its signalling system contribute to colorectal cancer perineural invasion. We will do this by analyzing colorectal tumor samples for RET expression to see how RET levels correlate to tumor invasiveness. Additionally, we will model the process of perineural invasion by co-culturing neural cells with colorectal cancer cells. We will use this model to explore how RET signalling alters cancer cell motility and invasiveness in the neural environment. This will be done through a variety of visualization methods and molecular techniques we have previously developed to quantify cell invasion in a RET-dependent manner. Together, our experiments will further characterize the mechanisms of RET-mediated tumor spread. We ultimately hope to identify how RET and its signalling pathways may be potential candidates to target during colorectal cancer treatment.