Identification and Characterisation of Cancer Stem Cells in Gastric Cancer
 Andrew Barbour
Hypothesis
Cancer stem cells represent a self-renewing, tumorigenic subpopulation of cells within gastric cancer that are responsible for tumour progression and metastasis. In addition, the CSCs are may be the source of cells resistant to existing therapies and are responsible for treatment failures. We propose that gastric CSCs can be identified by the expression of stem cell markers and SP analysis and represent a phenotypically distinct subpopulation of cancer cells responsible for poor clinical outcomes and drug resistance in gastric cancer.
Project Aims
- To determine the existence of cancer stem cells in human gastric cancer.
- To establish cultures of human gastric CSCs in vitro
- To characterise the gene expression profile of CSCs and non-CSCs in human gastric tumours.
- To determine the expression of genes involved in stem cell regulation in human gastric cancer, such as hedgehog and CD44.
- To correlate the expression of stem cell genes with clinical outcomes in gastric cancer in order to determine whether these markers can prospectively identify patients at risk of recurrence.
- To determine mechanisms of drug resistance in human gastric cancer and whether gastric CSCs have a differential response to drug therapies compared with the non-CSC population.
- To determine whether therapies directed against genes involved in stem cell regulation, such as hedgehog and CD44, can inhibit cancer stem cell activity.
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