Oncogenic Roles of Dysplastic Stem Cells in Gastric Carcinogenesis
Abstract
The PI’s Career Goals in Cancer Research During my postdoctoral fellowship, I hope to complete the necessary trainings of a research fellow and to become an independent gastric cancer researcher in the future through basic and translational research focusing on gastric cancer development and progression. The strategic objectives that I would like to achieve through this award are as follows: (1) Acquire novel techniques and interpretation skills for biological and biomedical data through proposed methods. I will learn novel protocols and techniques such as multiplex immunostaining and computational data analysis from colleagues, workshops, and reference literatures to optimize experimental conditions and standardize experimental repetition as well as perform in-depth analysis. (2) The second main objective is to present the findings of this study as a professional presenter and writer based on the up-to-date research. Attending the annual scientific conference supported though this award will allow for supplementary learning about the current research trends in gastric cancer and develop my presentation skills while sharing my work with other researchers. (3) With the successful achievement of these objectives, I aim to develop leadership and communication skills as a future potential mentor and an independent investigator. I will accomplish this by learning how to organize research and manage networks by working closely with my mentors and collaborators as well as understand the importance of communication with other researchers. Furthermore, throughout my fellowship, I will seek out opportunities to be a mentor for the next generation of scientists such as undergraduates, medical students, and graduate students and enhance my abilities for productive interactions with others in various scientific backgrounds. The Scientific Objective and Rationale for the Proposed Project Globally, gastric cancer is the third highest cause of cancer-related deaths. Gastric cancer development is often preceded by the emergence of pre-cancerous metaplasia and dysplasia lesions. Gastric dysplasia leads to a high risk of gastric carcinogenesis, therefore patients who have dysplasia are highly recommended to receive endoscopic resection to prevent gastric cancer development. Although identification and characterization of stem cells in pre-cancerous lesions are important for understanding gastric carcinogenesis, the presence and roles of the pre-cancerous stem cells are largely unknown. I propose to address the tumorigenic potential of dysplastic stem cells that I have previously identified using our in vitro dysplastic cell culture model and investigate whether human dysplasia also has stem cells which may contribute to cancer development. Throughout this proposed 2-year project, I will identify the risk factors in dysplastic lesions and help prevent occurrence of gastric cancer by direct detection of the dysplastic stem cells in human gastric cancer patient tissues. This study will provide important insights into understanding cellular mechanism of dysplasia progression into cancer and the outcome from this study will contribute to the advancement other basic research proposals about cancer development and enable better clinical practices, focused on prevention, diagnosis, and therapy of gastric cancer. Military Benefit The incidence of gastric cancer is heavily influenced by environmental factors such as Helicobactor pylori infection, which is a major cause of chronic atrophic gastritis progressing to intestinal metaplasia, dysplasia, and gastric cancer. The United States Department of Defense indicated in 2018 that the United States military has routinely deployed approximately 87 % of active duty military personnel in East Asia (48 %) and in Europe (39 %), which has the highest incidence and mortality of gastric cancer worldwide. Accordingly, the risk of Helicobactor pylori infection has steadily increased among the United
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Mar 10, 2021
- Source ID
- W81XWH2010593
Entities
People
- Jimin Min
Organizations
- United States Army
- Vanderbilt University