MRI tomorrow

The JNK experiments are finally done - at least for now. I am getting ready to do some in vivo experiments. I think I described the experiments awhile ago but they failed when we did them in December. Briefly, I have implanted human tumors into mice that have been genetically bred not to reject foreign tissue. The first time I did this experiment I simply made a small pocket under the skin between the shoulder blades, inserted a chunk of tumor, and sutured it back up. This time, I not only placed tumor between the shoulder blades, but I also drilled through the cranium, exposed the brain, and placed a small piece of tumor inside the cranial vault. Since the tumors we deal with are found in the brain, this approach more closely approximates what is actually going on in a human patient. I had 15 successful surgeries. Tomorrow, I am going to take 5 of the mice and give them MRIs to establish a baseline tumor size. Once all 15 mice are scanned, I will begin a daily 12 week treatment regime that will culminate in a final MRI (to establish an endpoint tumor size) and a removal of the tumor for immunocytochemical analysis.

I am also thick in the middle of some cloning experiements. I am trying to clone a nuclear export signal or a nuclear localization signal onto the front of the p75 receptor gene. Once this is done, we will be able to transfect cells with these molecular constructs to get a better idea of what p75 does in certain environments. Wish me luck.