Virtual Summit Submission

UC San Diego
Bioengineering

Biography

Shannon is a 3rd year bioengineering major at UC San Diego and a research intern at Scripps Research. Over the summer, she conducted research at the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria! With the Obenauf Group, she worked on improving the immune-cancer cell interaction in osteosarcoma, a pediatric bone cancer.

Project

Finding the One that Got Away: Determining MHC-1 Regulators in Osteosarcoma
There is a 50% chance of developing a tumor in your lifetime; thankfully, your immune system can recognize cancer cells through surface markers and kill them before this happens. However, cancer cells can escape this through immune evasion, which includes the downregulation of surface marker MHC-1. By looking at genes upregulating MHC-1 presentation, we can reverse the downregulation and provide more targets for T-cells. My project focuses on validating MHC-1 regulators found in colorectal cancers in osteosarcoma, a pediatric bone cancer. Through CRISPR screens and T-cell cocultures, the efficacy of regulators on MHC-1 expression and T-cell mediated killing is shown.