Kingston RIOT

Catch us on CogecoTV’s Kingston Change Makers airing later this year! Stay tuned!

Kingston Research Information Outreach Team (RIOT) received an Ontario Impact Award for Community Leadership today @ KFL&A Public Health

This cell line is termed WiDr, and it is a colorectal cancer cell line. It has a very important mutation that is common to a number of gastro-intestinal cancers. For this reason, these cells are used to test out anti-cancer drug treatments. This cell line was not derived directly from a patient, but from a different colorectal cancer cell line called HT-29. #SeeThroughOurScope

Our booth at the Genetics Patient and Family Day where we'll be talking about hereditary cancers #KingstonRIOT #hereditarycancer

This cell line is called PANC-1 and is derived from pancreatic cancer. It is used for several purposes, including testing anti-cancer therapeutics and modelling pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is known to be very aggressive. Alan Rickman, who played Professor Snape in Harry Potter, battled against pancreatic cancer before passing away. #SeeThroughOurScope

First picture: This cell line originates from a Swiss mouse embryo. Mouse cell lines such as this are widely used in the early stages of experimentation. This normal cell line can be transformed into a cancer cell line, by causing it to produce a cancer causing agent, termed an onco-protein. Interestingly, different onco-proteins can cause cells to form different looking tumours, as you can see in the following two pictures. Second picture: Cells have an onco-protein called vSrc. Third picture: Cells have an onco-protein called SVLT. Notice how the tumours of these cells differ in cells with vSrc (large clump) compared to cells with SVLT (patchy)! #SeeThroughOurScope