Grant: Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA)

A pathologist who assesses a microscope slide of a section of tissue often uses stains that bind to targets in the tissue. One method, immunohistochemistry (IHC), uses an antibody to bind to a protein or other target. Advanced methods that include mass spectrometry can be used to acquire dozens of stains at once. Processing multiplexed IHC (mIHC) is a challenging and emerging area of research. Here at Queen's, we have preliminary processing of 30+ tissue samples from patients with triple-negative breast cancer. These mIHC images have targeted 31 relevant proteins that have complicated statistical and spatial distributions. Dream will explore the biological nature of our data to provide context for the project's computer science counterparts. Her two primary responsibilities will be (1) to create a review of the dataset's variables to identify if biological explanations for the trends revealed during the data's analysis, and (2) to identify significant biological relationships between different variables, or between variables and the form of cancer exhibited by the patients the data was collected from. Specific tasks for the project will include: (3) development of a MATLAB script for visualizing the mean intensities of each variable; (4) exploration of the data from both a patient-specific and population-wide perspective; (5) create a summary document outlining the research findings; and (6) prepare and present the material for an audience with mixed academic and research backgrounds.