Project
This week I spent the majority of my time on my project. I am working with Dr. Te in the urology department. Dr. Te specializes in prostate cancer surgery and treatment. He is currently looking for a more targeted therapy for his patients that will enhance his current treatment methods. In addition, another doctor with an office right around the corner from Dr. Te’s, Dr. Bander, has a lab that is has experience working with prostate cancer. I was able to connect with the two doctors to formulate a project that will investigate a targeting antibody that could aid in the treatment of prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer cells have been found to express prostate specific membrane antigen on their cell surface. J591 is and monoclonal antibody developed in Dr. Bander’s lab to target PSMA expressing cells. For my project I will be conjugating the antibody to a fluorescent tag and then incubating the antibody with PSMA expressing LnCap cells. Based on the internalization of the antibody I we will quantify the binding affinity of the antibody and thus determine the possible effectively of targeting prostate cancer using the J591 antibody.
