Studying the Role of Macrophages in Cancer Cell Phenotype and Metastasis

The research project will include engineering of human bone and lung tissue models from human cells, for studying cancer metastasis in vitro. The research assistant will help fabricate tissue-specific scaffolds, learn critical skills in cell and tissue culture, and analyze in vitro tissue samples at various timepoints. In particular, the project will include learning of a number of analysis tools, including confocal imaging and microscopy, for imaging of histological tissue sections and vascular barriers, as well as transcriptomic profiling (i.e. qPCR) of immune and cancer cells after in vitro co-culture experiments. For this project, the research assistant will specifically study the direct and indirect crosstalk between macrophages and different cancer cell lines using qPCR, flow cytometry, and real-time imaging.