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Wynette Dietz
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E-mail: willx016@umn.edu
Thesis Advisor: Chris Pennell
Year entered: 2005
Degrees received:
B.A., Biology, Hamline University, 2004
Honors and Awards:
Thesis research:
Tumor-initiating cells comprise a subpopulation that are typically
resistant to current therapy and maintain the properties of
self-renewal and differentiation by which very few cells can
drive the formation of large heterogeneous tumors. Therefore,
to completely eradicate tumors, the tumor-initiating cells
must be destroyed. Emerging evidence suggests that chondroitin
sulfate proteoglycan 4 (Cspg4) is a tumor-initiating cell
marker in human breast cancer and may play a role in tumor
proliferation and/or metastasis. Importantly, Cspg4 is expressed
by cells in the 4T1 murine breast cancer cell line, making
this an excellent model in which to study vaccines that target
tumor-initiating cells. We plan to exploit Cspg4 as a target
for immunotherapy in the 4T1 model by creating DNA vaccines.
The Cspg4 gene will be fused to the gene that encodes heat
shock protein 70 (hsp70), a potent immune adjuvant, in a mammalian
expression vector. Previous research in our lab has shown
that immunization with a fusion protein consisting of an antigen
(Ag) bound to hsp70 produces a potent, long-lived Ag-specific
CD8+ T cell response. We hypothesize that immunity elicited
by hsp70 fused to an antigen expressed on tumor-initiating
cells will lead to tumor eradication.
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