Brianna McIntosh

Many tumors have proteins that are overexpressed on the surface of the cancer cells and secreted by surrounding cells into the tumor microenvironment. These overexpressed proteins cause increased cancer signaling which leads to tumor growth and invasion. I am interested in engineering these overexpressed proteins to create decoys that can block the signaling of cancer cells, leading to slower tumor growth and less severe outcomes. Our lab uses directed evolution and yeast surface display to engineer high affinity proteins that can compete with the proteins found in the tumor for their targets. My project is focused on a protein that is upregulated in lung adenocarcinoma, which I will be engineering as a decoy and then testing in mouse models of cancer to interrogate for a therapeutic effect.