Kate Sutherland-Projects

Kate Sutherland-Projects

Researcher: 
Dr Kate Sutherland

Projects

Last modified: 
Mon, 20/10/2014 - 10:26am

Generation of lung cell type-restricted Ad5-Cre viruses to identify cells of origin of lung cancer

This involves the generation of a series of recombinant adenoviruses that have the ability to activate/inactivate oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes in distinct cellular compartments of the lung. Multiple cell type-restricted Ad5-Cre viruses have been generated and experiments are currently focused on their use in genetically engineered models to trace the early transformation events in different lung cancer subtypes.

Generation of genetically engineered models of squamous cell lung cancer

This involves the generation of oncogene- and tumour suppressor gene-driven models. We are using our expertise in directing mutations to distinct lung epithelial cell populations in order to assess the importance of candidate mutations on driving squamous cell cancer. These models will be used to gain insights into the genetic and cellular changes that underlie this disease and to investigate new targeted therapies and drug responses, which may aid in the design of improved treatment modalities for patients with this disease.

Identification and examination of lung basal cell regulatory genes

Airway basal cells are a population of multi-potent progenitor cells that drive homeostasis of the normal epithelium and its regeneration following injury or infection. We hypothesize that genes involved in maintaining basal cell proliferation/differentiation may become deregulated in the process of malignant transformation to cancer. This project utilizes targeted models and promoter-specific Cre-strains to assess the function of candidate genes in lung development and in adult progenitor cell activity.