Fitch, Sergio, 2014-2015

Sergio Fitch
Sergio
Fitch

"Engineering Adipose Stem Cells with Nanoparticles Against Malignant Brain Tumors"

Host Mentor: Fan Yang
Stanford University

The Fan Yang Laboratory focuses in Biomaterials and Stem Cells engineering for tissue engineering and targeted drug delivery. One of the major focuses of the lab is the eradication of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) using adipose derived stem cells (ADSCs). Due to the delicate anatomical location of GBM (the brain), surgical removal is often times precluded, dramatically reducing clinical outcomes. Adipose derived stem cells are an abundant source of adult stem cells that possess unique tumor-tropic abilities coordinated by a myriad of tumor-secreted signals. Exploiting this knowledge, we sought to engineer ADSCs with the anti-apoptotic agent Tumor Related Apoptosis-Inducing Ligand (TRAIL), which selectively induces programmed cell death in tumor cells while leaving normal cells intact. This way, TRAIL overexpressing ADSCs could selectively “seek and destroy” GBM cells. To accomplish this, we circumvented the caveats of viral gene delivery by using an in-house developed polymeric transfection technique to modify ADSCs for TRAIL overexpression. So far, our in vivo studies show improved survival and tumor mass reduction upon application of modified ADSCs to tumor-bearing mice. Our results indicate that ADSCs mediated drug delivery is a feasible therapy with tremendous therapeutic potential against TRAIL sensible cancers. Currently, we are working on a combination therapy using TRAIL-ADSCs and histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) to synergize the apoptotic potential against GBM.