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Description
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States and novel methods of treating advanced malignancies are of high importance. Of these deaths, prostate cancer and breast cancer are the second most fatal carcinomas in men and women respectively, while pancreatic cancer is the fourth most fatal in both men and women. Developing new drugs for the treatment of cancer is both a slow and expensive process. It is estimated that it takes an average of 15 years and an expense of $800 million to bring a single new drug to the market. However, it is also estimated that nearly 40% of that cost could be avoided by finding alternative uses for drugs that have already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The research presented in this document describes the testing, identification, and mechanistic evaluation of novel methods for treating many human carcinomas using drugs previously approved by the FDA. A tissue culture plate-based screening of FDA approved drugs will identify compounds that can be used in combination with the protein TRAIL to induce apoptosis selectively in cancer cells. Identified leads will next be optimized using high-throughput microfluidic devices to determine the most effective treatment conditions. Finally, a rigorous mechanistic analysis will be conducted to understand how the FDA-approved drug mitoxantrone, sensitizes cancer cells to TRAIL-mediated apoptosis.
ContributorsTaylor, David (Author) / Rege, Kaushal (Thesis advisor) / Jayaraman, Arul (Committee member) / Nielsen, David (Committee member) / Kodibagkar, Vikram (Committee member) / Dai, Lenore (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
When it comes to the topic of chemical engineering, the general public has a set of neutral, if slightly uninformed perceptions that are largely tempered by the initial emotional responses to the field and its associated topics. These topics include the differentiation between chemical engineers and chemists, the importance and potential danger of the products they produce, as well as the association of the subject matter with less than favorable secondary education experiences. This thesis consists of first assessing the opinions of a population meant to represent the general public regarding these subjects, then exploring the potential improvements of opinion and understanding that may be yielded from presenting the subject matter by way of a concise learning tool, such as a video. The results of this effort showed that factual understanding can be at least incrementally improved for 18% of participants through this method, while the effect on opinions can range from being improved to maintaining an enduring indifference, with an average of 17% of participants seeing improvement. Further iteration of this methodology with more consistent, impartial survey methods and refined questions could potentially yield more noteworthy improvements within the subjective domain, with the resultant learning tool of that iteration being applicable as not only an instrument of educating the general public, but also as a means to recruit potential students to the ASU chemical engineering degree program.
ContributorsJanovsky, Trey Patrick (Author) / Taylor, David (Thesis director) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / Chemical Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05