Constipation. Delirium. Fatigue. Nausea. Vomiting. Insomnia. Hair loss.

These are only some side effects of chemotherapy (a treatment with drugs that kills cancer cells).

Cancer is the leading cause of death in Australia - over 36,000 people die from cancer each year. Kartini Kochar is currently researching how we can reduce these side effects by using new drug delivery technology.

KARTINI AND MICE
Today I was looking at mice organs I have been collecting over the past month. The rest of the day involved collecting data and putting it all together to help support goal of the project I am working on which is to improve drug delivery of current cancer treatments. At the moment we are looking at how chemotherapy drugs can kill cancerous tumor cells but not go to the rest of the body, thereby reducing the side effects of the treatment.

THE SCIENCE OF RAT RESEARCH AT EnGeneIC (Entry of Genes Into Cancer)
Grow cancer cells; get mouse with suppressed immune system --> inject the cancer cells into them which will develop into a tumor; inject them with different quantities of the drug; wait a certain time (for 1, 6, 24, or 48 hours) to allow the drug to travel around the body to the tumor areas; kill the mouse and take out its organs (brain, heart, spline); store the organs in the freezer; put the organ in a machine that measures how much drug is in the tumor area and how much is in the rest of the body (we obviously want more of the drug in the tumor region!); write up results.

DOES IT WORK
Data has suggested so far that the drugs we have modified go directly to the tumor area and thus get rid of the cancerous cells without having the negative side effects seen by previous chemotherapy treatment.

WHY KARTINI IS RESEARCHING MICE
I went into a science career mainly due to my high school teacher who made me enthusiastic about learning how things work and how we can utilize science to improve our lives.

[insert picture of Kartini after surfing]

 

Written and edited by Catherine Beehag