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Drosophila melanogaster as a model for identifying potential chemotherapeutics

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Trinity Marden

Drug Discovery Lab

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Outline:

  1. Cancer
    • Need for treatments and cancer statistics
  2. The Experiment
    • Methods and design
  3. Interesting Results
    • Results from our experiment and interesting projects
  4. Conclusions

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What is Cancer

  • 1 in 2 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime
  • What causes cancer?

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Cancer Statistics - Why study Cancer?

  • Deaths in 2019 - 606,880
  • Diagnosed in 2019 - 1,762,450
  • Side effects are dangerous
  • Low survival rates

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Cancer Statistics - What can be done?

  • More research
  • Combinatorial therapy - radiation and chemotherapy
    • Benefits less toxic and more effective

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Outline:

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  1. Cancer
    • Need for treatments and cancer statistics
  2. The Experiment
    • Methods and design
  3. Interesting Results
    • Results from our experiment and interesting projects
  4. Conclusions

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Experiment Overview

Why use Drosophila melanogaster?

  • Rapidly dividing cells
  • Responsive to treatment
  • Short life cycle (~20 days)
  • Inexpensive

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Experiment Overview

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Hypothesis:

  • 50% of the Drosophila melanogaster will die from the radiation
  • Colchicine accompanied by radiation should produce approximately 0% in survival rate

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Methods:

  1. Place adult flies in population cages with the grape juice agar plates
  2. Collecting embryos from grape juice agar plates (Collected every class/lab)
  3. Transfer embryos to fresh bottles
  4. Collect and sort larvae by size (425 um, 600 um, 850 um)

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Methods:

5. Irradiate third instar larvae

6. Transfer larvae into vials containing food / drug mixture

7. Incubate culture vials for 10 days at 25 degrees celsius

8. Quantify survival of flies by counting dead and alive pupae cases

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Identifying Hits

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Outline:

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  1. Cancer
    • Need for treatments and cancer statistics
  2. The Experiment
    • Methods and design
  3. Interesting Results
    • Results from our experiment and interesting projects
  4. Conclusions

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Dihydroxyartemisinin & Wormwood

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D6 - Hippen, Wooster, Daly

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D12 - Cleveland, Fredrickson, Castellano

Aeroplysinin, an active compound in sea sponges

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Outline:

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  1. Cancer
    • Need for treatments and cancer statistics
  2. The Experiment
    • Methods and design
  3. Interesting Results
    • Results from our experiment and interesting projects
  4. Conclusions

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Conclusion

  • Identified hits in this experiment will move forward in the drug discovery and development timeline

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Acknowledgements:

  • Dr. Tin Tin Su – Lab Sponsor
  • Dr. Pamela Harvey
  • Discovery Lab Teaching Assistants - Murphy Brasuel, Tucker Harju, Khyathi Velpuri

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Funding:

  • Lee Niswander
  • Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
  • University of Colorado Boulder

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Questions