Josephine Sinamano of Carrollton, an MBS student at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, participates in cancer research

2017 Dec 1

Josephine Sinamano of Carrollton, a master of biomedical sciences (MBS) student at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine's (Geisinger Commonwealth) Doylestown campus, is conducting research with Roshan Thapa, M.D., assistant professor at the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute (BSBI). Geisinger Commonwealth's Doylestown campus is co-located with BSBI at the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center of Bucks County.

Dr. Thapa's projects involve interferon-based cell death and cell survival studies, and influenza A virus (IAV)-induced receptor interacting protein kinase 3 (RIPK3)-dependent cell death pathways.

Josephine's first project with Dr. Thapa involved Hepatitis B virus surface protein-mediated hepatocellular death when stimulated by SMAC mimetics, a new class of targeted drugs being developed for the treatment of solid tumors and hematologic cancers that specifically induce cancer cell death and block "pro-survival" signaling in cancer cells.

Her second project studies the possibility of therapeutic exploitation of regulated cell death in hepatocellular carcinoma immunotherapy using interferon-necroptosis model. Interferons are small secreted proteins with powerful antiviral and cytotoxic properties that induce death in susceptible cells. In this project, Josephine independently handles multiple hepatic cell lines, cultures them and performs cytotoxic assays. Assays measure proliferation, viability and cytotoxicity to monitor the response and health of cells in culture after treatment with various stimuli.