Finding the Cure

By JANELLE TENGCO | May 26, 2020 | Student Life

Summer break is perceived to be a time away from school and allows students to celebrate their successes from the school year. For Stanton College Preparatory School junior Aditi Verma, she spent last summer working on her project regarding pancreatic cancer in a collaboration with Mayo Clinic. Verma is conducting research on the stem cell marker, doublecortin-like kinase one (DCLK1), and its use of reducing the spread of cancer in the pre-cancerous development of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC).

For her research, Verma chose to observe the development of PDAC, which accounts for 95 percent of the malignancies that are formed in the exocrine cells of the pancreas. She wanted to study PDAC because of the disease’s dwindling survival rate. She addressed the major difficulty with pancreatic cancer in the absence of symptoms that would be necessary to detect for early diagnosis.

“[PDAC] is one of the major cancers,” said Verma. “The average life span is four to six months after you have been diagnosed. The five-year survival rate is nine percent and current treatments are not considered cures; they would be called standards of care. There are rarely symptoms [in the earlier stages]. You don’t know if you have pancreatic cancer until it’s in every other organ [in your body].”

infographic by Janelle Tengco

The pancreas’ exocrine cell types, acinar cells and ductal cells, assist with digestion and can contribute to the formation of precancerous cells if they malfunction. Verma had to utilize mice with an injected mutation, K-Ras, to observe the malfunctioning cells and the effects they had on the pancreas.

“These cells start doing the wrong thing and go through Acinar-to-Ductal Metaplasia (ADM),” said Verma. “This means that the acinar cells become duct-like cells and make large holes in the mouse’s pancreas. Those holes are called lesions and the [growth] of lesions indicates that they’re going to eventually have cancer.”

In her observation of these lesions, Verma notes the emergence of the protein stem cell marker, DCLK1. She experimented whether DCLK1 directly contributed to the formation of pancreatic cancer. This signified the next step in her experiment: the removal of DCLK1. 

“The first experiment [I had] to do was cytotoxic assay, which is used to measure cell death,” said Verma. “I’m going to use inhibitors of DCLK1: XMD8-92 and LRRK2-IN-1. They induce the cell death of [cancer] cells. I did a Western Blot, which measures the protein density, and I see an upregulation and downregulation in protein when you remove the DCLK1.”.

Verma was able to share these findings and measurements through her continuous involvement in various science fairs. Her enrollment in Mayo Clinic’s Science Program for the Advancement of Research Knowledge (SPARK) requires her participation in these competitions while allowing her to gain recognition at the district and state levels.

“I had two physical science fairs,” said Verma. “I had the district science fair in January and I won second place in biochemistry. I won third place in my category in the regional science fair. Along with third place, I was selected to be a [state science fair] finalist and be considered an International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) alternate. In May, I was selected to do a virtual symposium for the Sigma XI Research Honor Society.”

Verma’s decision on conducting research on pancreatic cancer may have been a factor that has allowed her to advance to higher science fairs. The recent discovery of the DCLK1 protein can provide the foundation for potential treatments specialized in pancreatic cancer. 

“My project was about the earliest stages of pancreatic cancer,” said Verma. “Usually, people study [DCLK1] after the cancer has already formed. No one knows how [pancreatic] cancer is formed so you wouldn’t know when the early stages are. I propose that scientists can use these stem cell markers to [determine if] you’re going to eventually have [cancer].”

Although Verma was given the opportunity to compete at ISEF, the sudden outbreak of the coronavirus has prevented her from achieving this goal with the cancelation of the event. The virus has also caused hindrances for her cancer study when she is forced to temporarily discontinue her research. According to Verma, this would be her second year of working on her project with Mayo Clinic and she still has plans to conduct various experiments.

The SPARK program at Mayo Clinic also requires its participants to spend extensive hours on their experiments and would cause them to devote most of their summer break to these research studies. This can mean staying after one’s designated time in Mayo Clinic’s laboratory and, depending on the project’s demands, can overlap with the school year.

“I had to be at my lab from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. almost every day,” said Verma. “[I had to stay after] every day after school for August and September. Every experiment has a four day treatment period, and it was difficult because I had to figure out [these experiments] on my own and I messed up a lot in the beginning, which means I wasted time.”

Despite these setbacks, Verma continues to remain hopeful in her ambitions and the goals she wants to achieve in her project. She plans to administer more experiments on DCLK1 and learn more about its effects that may potentially help with finding a treatment.

“The therapeutic approach I’m trying to do is to [detect pancreatic cancer] in the early stages if all of my experiments work,” said Verma. “My lab would likely use technology to target specific nanoparticle drug delivery toward these pancreatic cells. If everything works out, [we would] send in antibodies into the lesions with the inhibiting properties that DCLK1 brings and get rid of it.”

Verma’s efforts in conducting extensive research about pancreatic cancer can form the foundation of finding a possible cure for the disease. The progress she achieves in her project and her involvement in multiple science fairs will allow her to increase the research’s exposure to a broader audience and garner more support for it.