The ASPIRE Path in Molecular Medicine

As a direct admit to the PhD program, I have conducted experiments in my first year, and my in vitro results of the engineered NIS protein are going to be published soon. Based on these results, I developed my thesis project and will complete my qualifying exam this July. I plan to conduct additional in vitro experiments in different prostate cancer cell lines to demonstrate cell specificity, as I am expressing NIS under a tissue specific promoter- prostate-specific antigen (PSA). Subsequently, I will build the polyplex with the desired plasmid for delivery into mice and treat them with perrhenate to prove that this strategy is tissue-targeted and can treat prostate cancer.