Blood-Based Assays for Cancer
All dates for this event occur in the past.
Erica D. Pratt, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Associate, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Abstract: Biomarker profiling of tumor samples is increasingly used to stratify patients for targeted therapies and to monitor treatment efficacy. However, there are several barriers hindering accurate profiling of solid tumor samples, including: 1) accessibility of the tumor location, 2) low tumor cellularity due to high stromal content or immune infiltrate, and 3) multi-focal tumors which are spatially heterogeneous and cannot be fully sampled using standard tissue biopsies. An emergent body of literature has shown that peripheral blood, and other body fluids, contain various tumor-derived intermediates (i.e. cells and free DNA). These non-invasive "liquid biopsies" not only provide prognostic information, but also can be used to genotype tumors for targeted therapy selection and to detect the emergence of new sub-clones. However, the frequency of these circulating biomarkers is extremely low (<0.1%) and requires innovative engineering strategies to capture and study these analytes. My research focuses on the development of new tools and strategies leveraging liquid biopsy for real-time molecular monitoring and functional profiling of solid tumors.
Bio: Erica D. Pratt, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics. Dr. Pratt received her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University under the supervision of Prof. Brian Kirby. She has since conducted a series of multi-disciplinary postdocs in the laboratories of Dr. Andrew Rhim at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Prof. Laurie Parker at UMN developing blood-based assays for molecular and functional profiling of tumors. She has been selected as a 2009 NSF Graduate Research Fellow, a 2012 Cornell Physical Sciences in Oncology Young Investigator, a 2015 NCI T32 Training Grant Fellow, and a 2019 Mistletoe Foundation Research Fellow.
Meeting ID: 920 5810 3689
Password: 936576