Jenny Li
Ohio State University, OH·Medicine & Clinical Research
Bladder cancer is among the ten most common cancers, and it often comes back. More than 60% of patients relapse within two years of their first treatment, and up to 25% progress to advanced disease.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biology
- Topics
bladder cancer
urothelial cancer
urine cancer cell cultures
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Optimize and simplify the conditional reprogramming culture system for urine cancer cells into a clinical kit, testing co-culture formats, conditioned medium and low-oxygen (hypoxic) growth for efficiency and robustness.
- Establish a standard procedure for urine collection and transport by testing how pH, temperature, minimum cell number, and an antibiotic plus Y-27632 cocktail (a cell-survival compound) affect culture success rate.
- Determine how patient-specific factors, including urine timing before and after surgery, time of day, water intake and urine volume, affect cancer cell viability and urine cancer cell culture success.
- Optimize a self-sampling procedure that lets bladder cancer patients collect their own urine samples for urine cancer cell cultures.
More about the research
Patients therefore need repeated cystoscopy, a camera exam of the bladder, for years. This makes bladder cancer the most expensive cancer to treat per case. A cheaper and gentler test for spotting recurrence could improve outcomes and lower costs. One candidate is growing living cancer cells directly from a patient's urine.
Why it matters
Bladder cancer patients currently depend on frequent, costly and uncomfortable cystoscopy to watch for relapse. A standardized urine-based cell culture test could reduce reliance on cystoscopy and add information about how likely a tumor is to recur and which drugs it may respond to. Standard collection and handling procedures, including self-sampling, could help move these cultures toward routine use in bladder cancer clinics.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Gangning Liang
University of Southern California, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether DNA methylation marker panels measured in urine sediments can detect residual tumor cells after transurethral resection of bladder tumor in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer patients.
Benedict Shek Hang Law
Weill Medical College of Cornell University, NY·Biomedical Engineering
Determine the best physicochemical properties of Bds, an improved kidney-cleared carrier peptide, including chemical groups, length and surface charge, along with infusion rate and volume, for precise drug delivery to the urinary system.
Sarah Psutka
University of Washington, WA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether weekly in-clinic true acupuncture before intravesical therapy reduces urinary symptoms more than sham acupuncture or a waitlist control, using the EORTC QLQ-NMIBC24 questionnaire at weeks 3, 6 and 12.
The school
Ohio State University: 71 labs on PI Pages, $1.6B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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