Cancer Research Lab Gives Students Experience
Cancer is often described as the uncontrolled growth and spread of abnormal cells in the body. Cancer research is targeted to understand why these cells develop, how they spread and, most important, how to stop their growth.
The research can range from finding new ways to prevent cancer cells from initiating in the body to quicker ways to identify cancer cells or to identify treatments that are more specific to cancer cells. The one common characteristic among these different research areas is the need for initial lab testing. Cancer cell cultures are often used in this basic research. Cancer cell lines are cells taken from actual tumors that are grown in the lab and used to advance the knowledge we have of this disease.
The Cancer Research Lab is now equipped to culture cancer cell lines. This semester five senior biology students have participated in the setup of the research lab to culture these cells. The students are learning the basic skills of going from a frozen cell culture to maintaining it for in-culture use in experimentation. The experience they gain in the preparation and maintenance of and experimentation with these cells will prepare them for working in graduate school or industry labs, which is a primary goal of the Cancer Research Lab. It also opens the door for the pursuit of projects that would contribute to the body of knowledge used in fighting cancer. Future projects will hopefully look into areasas diverse as diagnostic testing using these cancer cell lines and in cancer prevention.
Sarah Finch, a senior biology major participating in the research lab this semester, said, The research lab has given me good experience and knowledge as I get ready to graduate and, Lord willing, work in a lab. It has been very beneficial and interesting to learn about the different processes of raising the cells to freezing them down. Hopefully, with the work we have done to start different cell lines, future classes will be able to learn and study from the research done with them.
Dr. Amy Tuck
Professor
Bob Jones University