Member SpotlightsFlow Cytometry Applications in Cancer Drug Discovery Jennifer Kahler, B.S. A Science Advisory Board Member Since 2001  Jen Kahler at Muir Woods during her Flow Cytometry training course at BD Headquarters, San Jose in August. Jen Kahler is an Associate Scientist at OSI Pharmaceuticals and her primary research involves development of inhibitor molecules that target cancerous cells. Although her current research involves drug development, her initial interests were in the marine sciences. She received her B.S. in Biology from Gettysburg College, where she had the opportunity to study at the Duke University Marine Laboratory during a semester abroad. From her undergraduate studies, she moved to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she specialized in protein purification studies. At Osiris Therapeutics, she studied the genetic makeup of adult bone marrow-derived stem cells and their development into other cell types (cartilage, adipose, and osteocytes), and her interest in cancer therapeutics led her to OSI Pharmaceuticals. Kahler's other interests include landscape painting, stained glass crafting, and travel: " I love to travel and I am currently working on crossing off the places on my “top ten places to scuba dive” list." Describe your research at OSI Pharmaceuticals. Currently, my research interests lie in cancer drug discovery – My company is developing small molecule inhibitors against tyrosine or serine-threonine kinases with a focus on the Epithelial to Mesencymal Transition. I am an associate scientist on a project team that is at the Lead to IND phase of drug discovery. I find the whole concept of metastasis very interesting (and it actually fits nicely with my background in cell differentiation). Learning what genes are upregulated or downregulated or inhibit the transition process has proven to be very challenging for us as a group, but we are learning more every day. If we can inhibit metastasis, it will be a major breakthrough for the treatment of cancer patients! Also, having had people close to me in my life as both cancer survivors and victims provides personal and not just professional motivation to help find therapies for several types of cancer. I would like to know more about the Clinical and Regulatory aspects of what happens as the drug discovery process progresses. Quite often, on the R&D end, once we identify an IND-track candidate, the project transitions over to the Clinical team and we rarely get to sit in on those meetings. What caused you to change research interests from marine studies to pharmaceuticals? I spent six months of my undergrad schooling at the Duke University Marine Laboratory and my independent study was in animal physiology. I wanted to pursue a career in Animal Behavior! My first job was at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and that’s where I started my career in molecular and cellular biology – it was a great place to work, as I was able to interact with very talented scientists with all different backgrounds. It was from there that I got a job at Osiris Therapeutics, where I learned more techniques used at the bench, such as cloning, and DNA sequencing, and even a little Flow Cytometry. These skills made me more marketable as a scientist and I enjoy learning new things all the time. I started at OSI very entry level and ran routine kinase assays all the time. Now I practically run my own project-within-a-project! The following questions concern flow cytometry technology used in an OSI Pharmaceuticals lab centered around cancer drug research. For what applications is flow cytometry used your in your lab, & how often? Mostly cell cycle analysis – we do drug discovery, so knowing at which stage a small molecule inhibitor causes growth arrest or apoptosis is informative. We just acquired a new BD FACScalibur with the HTS module so we can do 96-well and 384-well plate reads. This is the feature I am most excited about and I am looking forward to doing the assay development for our project teams. We’ll also want to do more sorting types of experiments, which will be a challenge. What is your preference for utilizing flow cytometry in your research -- conduct the experiments yourself or outsource the work to a core lab and why? We actually have a “hybrid” arrangement in place. We have two people trained on our machine and we share the responsibility of maintenance and also it is our job to train other users. We don’t have a very large lab, so we are not able to justify having a “dedicated” person for FACS. I actually like being able to learn a new technique, and then train others on how to do it. Are you excited about the "democratization" of flow cytometry by the incorporation of new solid state lasers into digital, bench-top instruments (which were once the purview top-end instruments) and why? We actually have a GUAVA analyzer that we acquired a couple of years ago. I think for people on limited research budgets, it is a great tool for being able to run assays like AnnexinV or look for other cell surface markers that you cannot analyze by other methods (ELISA, western blot) Do you see any potential downside to this newer technology? No downside in the “red flag” sense, but having run both types of machines, I think if you make the investment in a traditional Flow Cytometer there is much more capability and ability to run a whole host of assays, sort cells, perform 4+ color analysis; you can do a lot more with it. ### << Previous Next >> [ View All Member Spotlights ] |
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