Si Wu
University of Alabama, AL·Chemistry
Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecological cancer, and treatment still relies mostly on general chemotherapy that often fails when the disease returns. Unlike many cancers that spread through the blood, ovarian cancer spreads through small clumps of cancer cells, called spheroids, floating in the fluid that builds up in the abdomen (ascites).
- Fields
Chemistry
Biochemistry
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
ovarian cancer
top-down proteomics
intact proteoforms
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Develop and benchmark a 2D-RPLC-CE-MS/MS platform, which combines two separation steps with mass spectrometry, to screen intact proteoforms globally in single ovarian cancer spheroids.
- Develop and benchmark a 3D-IMAC-RPLC-CE-MS/MS platform that first captures phosphorylated proteins, to detect low-abundance intact phosphoproteoforms in spheroids.
- Integrate the patented Spray-Capillary ultralow-volume CE-MS technique with long-capillary ultrahigh-pressure liquid chromatography for deep top-down proteomics of under 100 picograms of material.
- Generate personalized proteoform maps from spheroids collected directly from patient ascites, including during chemotherapy, to characterize disease states and markers of chemoresistance.
More about the research
These spheroids are reported to drive resistance to chemotherapy. Chemical tags added to proteins after they are made, known as post-translational modifications (PTMs), also play a role. One example is phosphorylation, the addition of a phosphate group. Measuring the proteins and their tags in single spheroids could reveal markers of drug resistance, but each spheroid holds very little material.
Why it matters
Women with ovarian cancer often relapse with chemotherapy-resistant disease. Protein maps from single spheroids in a patient's abdominal fluid could reveal biomarkers that flag resistance early and help guide personalized treatment choices. The sensitive method could also be applied to other small clinical samples, such as biopsies or even single cancer cells.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Liangliang Sun
Michigan State University, MI·Chemistry
Advance CE-MS top-down proteomics to build a first draft proteoform atlas of HeLa cells. The atlas will contain at least one intact protein form for every protein-coding gene.
Ryan Julian
University of California-Riverside, CA·Chemistry
Design and synthesize photoactivated chemical modifiers that install a weak link at chosen residues in a protein backbone, so the protein can be split at that spot on demand.
Alexey Nesvizhskii
University of Michigan, MI·Biochemistry
Improve interactome analysis by moving the REPRINT resource (SAINT scoring plus the CRAPome contaminant repository) to an MSFragger-based pipeline, expanding CRAPome, and refining scoring of protein–protein interactions from AP-MS data.
The school
University of Alabama: 22 labs on PI Pages, $221M a year on research, 235 research doctorates a year.
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