Re-sensitising treatment resistant metastatic ovarian cancer

Project is suitable for honours or masters students.

High grade serous ovarian cancer is most often detected after it has moved away from the ovaries and fallopian tubes, where it is harder to treat and almost always becomes resistant to current treatments. Standard therapy relies on tumour cells being unable to accurately repair DNA damage due to mutations in common DNA damage response genes. Resistance to treatment occurs when tumour cells gain further mutations to bypass or repair mutated genes to re-enable accurate DNA repair.

The project will employ CRISPR screening, cell and molecular biology techniques to investigate mechanisms of resistance and identify novel strategies for re-sensitising ovarian cancer to therapy.