Because of the steady increase of HCC incidence in the US, particularly in South Texas, and dismal five year survival rate, there is an unmet and urgent need for the development of a patient tissue repository, cell lines, and animal models of HCC for the identification of molecular markers, which can then be targeted as novel therapeutic interventions through basic and translational research. We propose to test the hypothesis that genetic and epigenetic analyses in combination with high throughput drug screening in Hispanic HCC tissues and cells will allow us to identify novel molecular targets and therapeutic strategies for Hispanic patients with HCC and will also provide insights for the development of novel therapeutics for HCC in the general population in the US. To test our hypothesis, we will need to develop a HCC biorepository, cell lines and patient-derived xenograft models for basic and translational research in the South Texas Hispanic population. This objective will be achieved by accomplishing the following tasks. 1. To expand the current HCC biorepository at our Transplant Center. (Year 1-5) 2. To establish 4-5 HCC cell lines from Hispanic patients. (Year 1-5) 3. To establish 5-10 patient-derived HCC xenograft models in mice. (Year 1-5) The biopsy tissues we propose to collect with this IRB protocol will be used for the above 3 tasks.
Principal Investigator
Luzhe Sun