Tran conducts ovarian cancer research at City of Hope Hospital

By Josie Collier

Executive Features Editor

Senior Tamara Tran traveled to the heart of ovarian cancer research at the City of Hope Hospital in Duarte, California this summer.

Tran reached out the City of Hope Hospital to participate as a full-time intern in a cancer research study. The lab that Tran participated in focused specifically on ovarian cancer and otherwomen’s gynecologic cancer.

“My teachers have helped generate my interest in science,” Tran said. “I have Mr. Nodado for my biotechnology class and throughthat class, I was exposed to different research opportunities and internships.”

Last summer, Tran studied the effect of using sRNA gene therapy to silence genes causing drugresistance in ovarian cancer. Tran and her research group began two different experimental models on chicken eggs and mice to target the Twist protein regulated in ovarian cancer. After  the group targeted the Twist protein, they gave the subject chemotherapy and concluded that their method of chemotherapy worked better than other methods of chemotherapy, Tran said.

“I always loved science, but high school made science more rigorous,” Tran said. “I challenged myself more, and biotechnology encouraged me to look for research opportunities and brought about my scientific horizons.”

Tran’s research focused on using nanoparticles to deliver sRNA gene therapy on duck eggs. The research team applied the chemotherapy drug directly on the nanoparticles to deliver it to the tumor, which ultimately reduced the side effects of the treatment.

“The nanoparticle delivery mechanism with the sRNA is moving onto clinical trials at the

City of Hope hospital,” Tran said. “This is pretty big because it usually takes research a long time to move on before it can be used on humans.”

Tran’s lab group wrote and published an article on their discoveries called “Nano Medicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine,” which became a very popular medical article in

Japan. Tran also wrote an article by herself focusing on the negative results in her lab that may be published in the future. Tran’s research group will edit the paper and try to send it into publication, according to Tran.

“Usually, as a high schooler, the work you do doesn’t have much of an impact, but I had a really good opportunity to work in my lab this summer because once [I was] able to prove that [I] had knowledge, prior research and experience people started to trust what I said,” Tran said. “I really got to contribute and do actual work and not only do that work, but, in this case, I was able to apply what I learned and write a paper by myself.”

Tran spent Monday to Friday every week at the hospital and saw the first-hand impact that medicine and research can have on patients. Tran plans to continuing her internship throughout the school year and pursue a career in biology or biomedical technologies in the future.

“My grandfather passed away at the beginning of the summer to stomach cancer so this summer was just an impactful experience as a whole,” Tran said. “Being present at City of Hope and seeing how my research could have an impact on people that are struggling with cancer brought a new purpose to everything I was doing and it gave me a more intensified commitment to my work.”