Our Focus
Drug resistance of tumor cells is the cause of treatment failure for most human cancers. Acquired resistance was observed in the very first clinical administration of a chemotherapeutic agent 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.
Drug resistance of tumor cells is the cause of treatment failure for most human cancers. Acquired resistance was observed in the very first clinical administration of a chemotherapeutic agent 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.
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Featured Publications & Preprints
Lineage Tracing Reveals Clone-Specific Responses to Doxorubicin in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Morgan, D., Gardner, A.L., Brock, A. (2025) bioRxiv Access Online Mapping cell-cell fusion at single-cell resolution Gardner, A. L., Zheng, L., Howland, K., Saunders, A., Ramirez, A., Parker, P., Iloegbunam, C., Morgan, D., Jost, T. A., & Brock, A. (2025) bioRxiv Access Online Pycashier: cash in on DNA barcode tags. Morgan, D., Brock, A. (2024) Journal of Open Source Software Access Online Computational identification of surface markers for isolating distinct subpopulations from heterogeneous cancer cell populations Gardner, A.L., Jost, T.A., Morgan, D., Brock, A. (2024) npj Systems Biology and Applications Access Online |
Lab News
04/23/2025 Congrats to Didi for being a selected participant in the 2025 Rising Stars in Computational and Data Science Workshop. 04/11/2025 Eric presented his research at the Undergraduate Research Symposium titled: "Drivers of Metabolic Heterogeneity in Triple Negative Breast Cancer Subclonal Populations" 04/09/2025 Congrats to Daylin Morgan for successfully defending his thesis: "Uncovering The Heterogenous Response To Chemotherapy In A Clonally Resolved Triple Negative Breast Carcinoma Cell Model.”! 04/2025 We're excited to share a preprint showcasing the application of ClonMapper to study clone-specific responses to chemotherapy in TNBC cells. 12/2024 We're excited to share a preprint showcasing the development and application of ClonMapper Duo to track cell-cell fusion at single-cell resolution. 12/2024 Nuha presented her research at the Undergraduate Research Symposium titled: "Investigating the Fusion Rate and Population Dynamics of Heterogeneous 1806 TNBC Cells without Chemotherapeutic Treatment" 12/2024 Didi presents work on mapping cell-cell fusion at single-cell resolution at ACSB Cell Bio 2024 in San Diego as a part of the Emergent Functions in Syncytia Subgroup |