At the Roanoke Valley Governor’s School for Science and Technology, students are charged each year with carrying out a science fair project. This year, RVGS/Patrick Henry High School senior Ashley Lemon and RVGS/Salem High School senior Connor Scro elected to work in the biotechnology field on a project titled The Effectiveness of Antisense Inhibition of MicroRNA-301a as a Pancreatic Cancer Treatment.
“Both of us have been affected by cancer in our families,” said Scro. “Ashley’s mom is a breast cancer survivor, and a cousin of mine died recently from Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 32. Ashley and I both feel drawn to cancer research, and we chose to study pancreatic cancer because it has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers. Its mortality rate is 99%, and more than 30,000 Americans die from the disease each year. Ashley and I want to improve those statistics.”
Lemon and Scro are trying to develop a therapy that will selectively kill pancreatic cancer cells without affecting normal cells. They want to harness the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiation with out patients having to endure the common side effects of treatments such as hair loss, memory loss, nausea, and vomiting. Lemon and Scro are studying targeted therapy, and like most projects at Gov. School, this one is complicated.
“MicroRNA-301a has been shown to assist the proliferation and survival of pancreatic cancer cells,” said Lemon, “so we are binding antisense oligonucleotide 301a to microRNA-301a to inhibit it from functioning. We are conducting cell proliferation assays to measure cell growth, flow cytometry to count cells, and using quantum PCR to extract microRNA and BCL-2 genes and observe the effect of the antisense oligonucleotide on those particular RNAs.”
The project is so extensive that Lemon and Scro are working at three different labs to complete it. The Governor’s School’s lab has quantum PCR technology, and through Gov. School partnerships with Carilion Clinic and Virginia Tech, the students are able to conduct the bulk of their project at the partner labs. Already they have made some important discoveries.
“We found the IC 50 of the antisense oligonucleotide treatment to be a concentration of 25nM,” said Lemon, “ which means that 25nM is the dose that is most effective in killing cancer cells while leaving normal cells alone. Finding the optimal dose put us on the right track early and has allowed us to use the concentration in all further experiments. Our research is promising, and we’re very optimistic about the project.”
To find out how the project turns out, and to talk with the other 268 young scientists about their own exciting, innovative experiments, attend the Roanoke Valley Governor’s School’s Student Project Forum. Project Forum is a free, open-to-the-public event that will take place from 1:30-3:00 PM on Saturday, January 31, in the Patrick Henry High School cafeteria.
To learn more about the Roanoke Valley Governor’s School, a half-day regional public STEM school for motivated students in grades nine through twelve, please visit the school’s website at www.rvgs.k12.va.us or contact the school’s director, Dr. John Kowalski, or the school’s guidance counselor, Kathy Sebolt, at 540.853.2116.
