Mass spectrometry (MS) imaging has emerged as a revolutionary method for molecular mapping of tissue. The depth of spatial and molecular information from MS imaging has immense diagnostic, prognostic and mechanistic value for basic, translational, and clinical cancer research. We propose to establish a state-of-the art MS imaging center that will serve and support cancer researchers throughout Texas, working on ovarian, brain, breast, pancreatic, cervical and thyroid cancer, among others.

Conventional tissue biopsy is based on the evaluation of morphological features of the tissue by a trained pathologist, a subjective process. In contrast, hundreds of clearly defined molecular features diagnostic of disease are captured digitally in MS-Imaging. Just as the measurement of a panel of biomarkers from blood has radically improved the diagnosis of heart disease, the discrete measurements made by MS-Imaging have the potential to transform cancer management and advance fundamental cancer research. Dr. Eberlin’s MasSpec Pen is in clinical testing to establish surgical margins during cancer tissue removal.

The goals include:

1. Development of a high performance MS imaging center which will expand opportunities for diagnostic, prognostic, and mechanistic cancer research.
2. Enable MS imaging for tissue and cellular analysis with emphasis on robust sample preparation methods, advanced biostatistical methods for data analysis, and optimization of study design.
3. Promote the development of new technology that will advance the scope of MS imaging applied to cancer research, via methods to gather molecular fingerprints, to increase spatial resolution and sensitivity, and to enable sophisticated bioinformatics.

The projects envisioned range from fundamental mechanistic studies for targeted analysis of molecular markers in cell lines to high impact clinical investigations of novel molecular markers of disease progression and treatment response in patient tissue samples.

The aim of the CPRIT Integrated Single Cell Genomics Core Facility is to bring single cell sequencing technologies to cancer researchers in Texas, including the Texas Medical Center and greater UT Universities. These techniques include single cell DNA, RNA and Epigenomic sequencing, as well as computational resources for data processing and analysis. We expect that these tools will have multiple cancer research applications, including the study of cancer immunology, tumor evolution, microenvironment, metastasis, circulating tumor cells, and therapeutic resistance.

Whether due to mutations in genes or environmental factors, cancers are defined by unregulated cell growth. This abnormal cell growth has the potential to spread throughout the body, disrupting vital processes. Developing new treatments and diagnostics requires a deep understanding of the molecular interactions and structures within cancerous cells, and how they differ from corresponding healthy cells.

Optical microscopes are limited to resolutions of about 0.2 microns, whereas with transmission electron microscopy, 1000x higher resolutions are possible. At such resolutions the 3-D structures extending down to individual molecules within the cell become resolved. This technique can also be used to study the 3-D structures of individual molecular assemblies to near-atomic resolution. This facility will add new technologies to the two CryoEM Cores in the Texas Medical Center (TMC), and will provide these technologies to all cancer researchers in other TMC and surrounding area Institutions.

A state-of-the-art analytical facility has been established (North Texas Clinical Pharmacology Cancer Core) to help basic cancer researchers and physicians better test new drugs or new therapies. Such testing will assist investigators to better understand how cancer drugs work in the body, how the drugs treat cancer, and how to avoid unwanted effects of cancer drugs. In general, the research team of this core will support translational researchers to do research on what cancer drugs do to the body, and what the human body does to the drugs. The Core has expertise and state-of-the-art instrumentation to help cancer investigators with designing studies to optimize our understanding of drug movement in the body, the action of drugs, and the best approaches to administer the drug and enhance cures while reducing unwanted side effects.

The overarching goal of the PDX-AIM Core is to provide computational and experimental infrastructure, as well as technical expertise to generate, characterize, manage, and experiment with, large collections of state-of-the-art in vivo cancer models for multiple organ sites that retain biological fidelity with the tumor of origin.

Provides a research platform and services to facilitate data sharing, management, harmonization and analysis for the pediatric cancer research community.

Provides a bio-repository of clinically and molecularly annotated pediatric solid tumor samples and liquid biopsies from pediatric patients from the time of initial diagnoses through treatments and either survival, recurrence or metastasis.

Provides information on therapeutic relevance of specific genes/variants; created databases and alert systems to facilitate accrual to genotype-selected trials; and monitors trial enrollment after genomic testing.

Develops small molecule probes, preclinical candidates, and drugs for researchers and clinicians in the Texas Medical Center and beyond.

Provides access to the most up-to-date technologies and equipment to support pre-clinical radiation research using cell or small animal models.

Provides investigators access to innovative and cutting-edge cancer research tools for the discovery and characterization of novel protein-protein interactions.

The mission of this Core Facility is to assist cancer researchers with state-of-the-art proteomics and metabolomics technologies for discovery of protein and metabolic pathways that underlie important cancer research problems such as identification of drivers of cancer progression, resistance mechanisms to enable development of effective alternative therapies, identification of biomarkers for diagnosis and improved therapy choices, and new targets for drug development.