Grant: CIHR Fellowship

Many established cancer therapies target the process of cell division in order to kill cancer cells. These therapies prevent the separation of chromosomes from the mother cell into the two daughter cells. There have been recent gains in the understanding of how such therapies kill cancer cells, but the processes that regulate the separation of DNA to the daughter cells remain poorly understood. The kinetochore is a large protein structure that attaches the DNA to the mitotic spindle. The spindle then exerts a pulling force to separate the chromosomes into the two daughter cells. During cell division, many of the proteins that comprise the kinetochore are modified by the addition of phosphate to alter their behaviour in response to different stimuli. We intend to use a technique called mass spectrometry to measure and define the phosphate modified proteins at the kinetochore. The objective of this project is to define at a systems level how such changes occur during normal cell division and also in cells targeted with anti-cancer therapies, thus leading to a greater understanding of the process of cell division.