More of the Right Cells for Better Translational Medicine: Bioengineering of Cancer Stem Cells

Yonghyun (John) Kim, Ph.D.
Reichhold-Shumaker Assistant Professor
Chemical and Biological Engineering
The University of Alabama

Cancer stem cells (CSCs), which are also called tumor-initiating cells, are considered the stem cell-like pluripotent cancer cells that cause relapse in patients even after the most rigorous treatment. Pharmaceutical companies, however, typically use several decades-old cancer cell lines during their drug development because, among many reasons, CSCs are hard to acquire and are limited in number and expanding them without losing their stem characteristics is difficult. It is becoming increasingly recognized, however, drug development must be based on CSCs to develop better drugs that target the "real culprit" in tumors. Therefore, our work aims to bridge the oncologists with engineers by developing methods to acquire copious amounts of CSCs using bioengineering principles for the mass production of CSCs from primary patient tissues. In this seminar, we will discuss our laboratory’s recent efforts in developing methods to improve the yield of CSCs using various media optimization and bioprocessing strategies. In addition, we will also discuss the role of CSCs in cancer metastasis and circulating tumor biology. Through our work, we hope to provide foundation towards building CSC cell banks in the future.

Friday, March 23, 2018
2:00 pm
1221 Patrick Taylor Hall