The project that I am going to be most involved in throughout my co-op aims to increase the body’s immune response against multiple myeloma. Multiple myeloma is cancer that is present in the blood and bone marrow that remains undetected by the body’s immune system. The project aims to use gapmers in order to upregulate and deregulate certain proteins with the goal of promoting an immune response through phagocytosis. There are drugs that have been found to induce immunogenic cell death (ICD) in Multiple Myleoma, however, there is no associated immune response from the body. The research goal is that through the combination of treating cells to undergo ICD, in addition to adding gapmers as a means to change gene expression in cells to promote phagocytosis and T-cell immune response, multiple myeloma can have improved immunotherapies. My work will mainly be to test if the gapmers are successful in their ability to upregulate or downregulate certain proteins through Western Blots. I also will be responsible for running qPCRs in order to ensure the increase and decrease of certain gene expressions in our cell lines.

CaNCURE Research Presentation: https://youtu.be/gKQnfCVbxd4