Research Program and Theme
- Program: Cancer Engineering and Biological Systems
- Theme: Anticancer Chemistry
Research Focus
Diana Ranoa uses CAR-T cells directed against tumors that display dysregulated surface antigens as a model system, performs in vitro co-culture assays, and sets up in vivo tumor models using both immune-competent and immunodeficient mice. Common techniques used in the lab include basic molecular biology assays (such as genetic engineering, DNA/RNA/protein purification, flow cytometry, ELISA-based assays, RT-qPCR), tissue culture work (such as handling human and murine tumor cell lines, primary T cell purification from human and murine tissues, lentiviral and retroviral transduction of activated T cells, co-culture assays of tumor and effector T cells), animal work (such as establishing murine tumor models, administering treatment through various routes, breeding mice, isolating tissue samples for downstream processes), and big data analyses (such as bulk RNA sequencing, single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial transcriptomics, data mining).