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Kirienko Lab     - we work with worms -  

 

Contact Information

Skype: kirienkolab
Email: kirienko@rice.edu
Phone: 713-348-2581
Office: GRB Hall, W132

Quinton L. Anderson

Quinton L. Anderson

Research Interests:

Harnessing Mitochondrial Dysfunction as a Target for Cancer Therapy.
Cancer is the number one cause of death for Texans under the age of 85 and is the second most common cause of death worldwide (American Cancer Society, 2016). Through all the research and money spent, we have found out that cancer is not a monolithic disease with a single cause. We have also found out that there is not any drug or treatment option that can cure all cancers. We know that cancers often have different metabolomics than the surrounding normal tissue, and it has been shown that cancers often have mitochondria with dysregulated function. In normal tissues, dysfunctional mitochondria are degraded via mitophagy (selective autophagy of the mitochondria). With damaged and dysfunctional mitochondria, one can theorize that cancer cells will be susceptible to mitotoxins. My focus is to use C. elegans to find out which tumor suppressor genes, when missing, are more susceptible to mitotoxins, and to form a gene network map based from the susceptible genes. After the gene network has be confirmed we will obtain cancer cell lines with mutations in our confirmed genes and test whether mammalian cancer cells are more susceptible to mitotoxins then healthy cells. Eventually xenografts derived from patient’s tumors will be tested to determine the relevance of mitotoxins being used as a new therapy option. This is a novel idea that mitotoxins, or any small molecule that induces mitophagy, can be used as a combinatorial cancer therapeutic with conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy.