2018 Undergraduate Summer Research Program Participant

Home Department: Biology
Mentor: Scott Dixon, Biology

Photo of USRP student Carson Poltorack in the laboratory, looking through a large microscope.When normal tissues transform into cancerous ones, many sorts of adaptations help them evade the body’s natural anti-cancer defenses. Carson is studying the role of ferroptosis, a form of programmed cell death, as an anti-cancer mechanism, and investigating how tumors can use surrounding proteins as a nutrient source to simultaneously grow and evade ferroptosis.