The Rhabdomyoblast Project
Mentor Name: Charles Keller
Tissues are made of many types of cells, including but not limited to blood vessels, immune cells, muscle cells, and tendons. Alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (aRMS) is not an exception, containing not just normal tissue cells but a variety of cancerous cell subtypes as well. The lab’s previous studies have started the journey of identifying the heterogenous cell types but propose there are important oncogenic subpopulations of ‘rhabdomyoblast’ that have yet to be discovered. A deeper understanding of aRMS tumors can help develop additional targets for aRMS therapy. Single cell sequencing (SCC), immune profiling, and histology of an aRMS tumor from one of lab’s in-house genetically engineered mouse models will be analyzed. Workshops provided by ALSF on single-cell sequencing analysis will play an important role in identifying the unknown cell subpopulations. The ASLF post candidate Sofia Tosoni will help to compare the tumor data to previously sequencing data across different known tissue and cell types to identify the subpopulations of cells within the alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma tumor.
