Home Department: Undeclared
Mentor: Melanie Hayden-Gephart (Neurosurgery)

“Modeling Glioblastoma Infiltration and Proliferation using a Novel Human Brain Organoid System”

Glioblastoma (GBM) is a malignant brain tumor with a poor patient prognosis. GBM hijacks and alters the brain immune system to support infiltration in the brain. Our inability to recapitulate the GBM brain immune microenvironment poses a major challenge in effective therapeutic development. Adriana will investigate the employment of air liquid interface (ALI) human brain organoid technology comprised of native brain immune cells. She will study the human GBM infiltration (1) in presence of conditioned media from ALI organoids and (2) when co-cultured with ALI organoids. She hypothesizes that targeting the brain immune cells will reduce GBM infiltration and improve patient outcome.