This summer, I had the opportunity to intern in the Department of Cancer Biology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. My mentor, Professor Luca Busino, focuses on studying the process of protein degradation in blood cancers. The protein degradation pathway is known to be altered in this particular type of cancer. The ultimate goal of the laboratory is to identify potential drug targets in this pathway in order to slow down or cause the death of tumor cells. I specifically worked on determining that a protein involved in inflammation can be degraded by a specific member of the degradation pathway. This relationship could help explain the role of inflammation in the development of cancer. More importantly, it represents a potential anti-cancer target that could eventually be used to develop treatments.
