Connor Gilkes-Imeson

• MSci Biomedical Sciences
• DNA repair status and drug sensitivity of a novel patient derived cell line

NUCOLL43 is a new cell line derived from tumour cells taken from a patient with ovarian clear cell carcinoma (CCC). CCC are difficult to treat because they are resistant to current standard chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. NUCOLL43 is very similar genetically and biochemically to the tumour from which it was derived, so it is a good tool to investigate novel treatments for CCC. The aim of my 8-week project at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research was to investigate the sensitivity of NUCOLL43 to standard platinum-based chemotherapy, whether this could be increased by using a novel drug (ATR inhibitor), to radiotherapy and whether that could be increased by new drugs (PARP inhibitor) and to a drug that acts on cell signalling (PI3-kinase inhibitor). The cells were very sensitive to cell killing by the PI3K inhibitor and the ATR and PARP inhibitors approximately doubled the sensitivity to platinum and to radiation.

 Funding source: Wellcome Trust

 Supervisor: Prof Nicola Curtin