Faculty Sponsor: Michelle Dawson

Despite the global scope of cancer, many mechanisms surrounding the disease are not well understood. One such mechanism is that of chemotherapeutic resistance, when chemotherapies are ineffective at causing cell death. The mechanisms surrounding resistance are important in understanding how to enhance chemotherapies in recurrent cancer. Elizabeth will examine these mechanisms by testing if increasing cell division in non-dividing cancer cells will increase sensitivity to Taxol, a chemotherapeutic agent that acts by killing cells undergoing division.