Research
Drug resistance of tumor cells is the cause of treatment failure for most human cancers.  Acquired resistance was observed in the very first trial of a chemotherapeutic in 1942.  Since that time, vast improvements in chemotherapy- including novel drugs, combination therapies, reduced toxicity, and highly targeted treatments- have extended the lives of many cancer patients.  Yet drug resistance remains a major scientific and clinical challenge in the treatment of human cancer. 
     
​Tumor cell populations are characterized by enormous heterogeneity and plasticity. This variation contributes to disease progression and response to therapy, although the mechanisms are not yet well understood.  To address these challenges, we are developing novel technologies and experimental systems rooted in the tools of systems and synthetic biology and bioengineering. 
Lab News 
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3/21/2019  Can the growth dynamics of species in ecosystems give us new insights into the early growth of tumors? Our latest preprint tackles this question.
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2/2019  Our COLBERT barcoding platform is a Top 10 Finalist for the SLAS Innovation Award at the SLAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.  

1/31/19  Amy was the "Student's Choice" speaker in the BME department at the U of Maryland, College Park. Thank you to the grad student hosts and organizers!

12/2018 Congratulations to Aziz on receiving the UT Graduate School Dissertation Writing Fellowship!
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11/2018 Amy presented a talk at the Systems Approaches to Cancer Biology in Wood's Hole, MA and Kaitlyn was awarded a Best Poster award at the meeting.

10/2018  Kaitlyn is the Featured Scientist of the Center for Computational Oncology at UT Austin.

10/2018  Welcome to new BME graduate student Daylin Morgan!

9/2018  Aziz's paper on the COLBERT barcoding platform is published in ACS Syn Bio.

8/2018 Grant and Kaitlyn's paper on chemoresistance dynamics is published in Sci Rep.