Technologies That Accelerate Cancer Biomarker and Therapeutic Target Discovery

This lecture by Dr. Samantha Pattenden explores innovative technologies for cancer biomarker and therapeutic target discovery developed by her lab. Learn about their approach to exploiting tumor-specific changes in chromatin accessibility—a universal feature linked to various cellular processes that provides a comprehensive overview of transcriptional network rewiring during tumor growth, metastasis, and therapeutic resistance. Discover their patented method for extracting high-quality accessible chromatin from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissues and their novel high-throughput screen for small molecule inhibitors supported by the NCI Experimental Therapeutics program. The talk also covers their groundbreaking screen for inhibitors of the alternative lengthening of telomeres pathway in pediatric cancers. Dr. Pattenden, an Associate Professor at UNC Chapel Hill with over 20 years of experience in epigenetics, shares insights from her laboratory's work developing technologies that advance understanding of chromatin regulation and phenotypic screening platforms for cancer therapeutic target discovery. This 58-minute presentation is sponsored by the Center for Physical Genomics and Engineering, the Cancer and Physical Sciences Program at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, and NIH Grants.