The UWRF Tissue and Cellular innovation Center continued to develop throughout the past year with ongoing clinical studies in collaboration with the Marshfield Clinic, the development of new clinical and industrial partners as well as ongoing developmental biology studies.In our initial human tumor study TCIC Director, Dr. Lyden, and his collaborators from Marshfield Clinic (Dr. Ray Haselby) and UW-Stout (Dr. Micheal Pickert) demonstrated that primary human tumor samples from 5 distinct types of cancer will indeed grow in our 3D artificial tissue culture system. Further it was shown that specific and significant differences in that growth also occurred which may be reflective of specific stages of the disease. This successful modeling of human cancer in 3D was then accepted for presentation at the Journal of Cell Biology/New York Academy of Sciences meeting held in Manhattan (40th floor of 7 World Trade Center). The work was extremely well received and even generated an offer to collaborate with researchers from the Ontario Cancer Center on modeling breast cancer cell biology in 3D.
At the same time that the first study was wrapping up, Dr. Peter Dahlberg, a newly arrived surgeon at the River Falls Regional Hospital formally opened the new “Rivers Cancer Center” in collaboration with the Virginia Piper Cancer Center at the UMinn. Dr. Dahlberg immediately joined with the TCIC in forming an additional collaboration for the upcoming second human tumor study, which will seek to refine the application of our culture system to work in the direction of personalized medicine applications. Of particular interest in these follow-on studies will be the potential of this method for use in cancer treatment design. Also joining the principal research team as a new collaborator was Dr. Christopher Cold, head of Pathology at Marshfield Clinic. Additionally more than a dozen other surgeons, pathologists, clinical staff and patients at Marshfield and River Falls are or will be involved in providing samples for this work.
These clinical connections have also involved the exchange of presentations between UWRF, Marshfield Clinic and the Rivers Cancer Center as well as UW-Stout. Over the past year TCIC Director, Dr. Lyden has presented separately to the clinical staff and Research Foundation Board of Directors at Marshfield Clinic as well as the Hospital Board at the Regional Hospital in River Falls while Dr. Dahlberg and Cold have or are schedueled to present at UWRF to the Biology 341/342 Human Anatomy/Physiology course. Several additional talks are planned for the coming year as well. In the Fall, UW-Stout collaborator, Dr. Micheal Pickert, also visited campus for the 8th Annual SURSCA Gala Evening of RSCA and presented two posters from ongoing projects in his lab.
