Joanne Baylis' Summer Research 1998
Joanne Baylis, BS in Physics, summa cum laude, December 1998
Jo is currently attending grad school at the University of Virginia.


Fall 1998 Senior Project
Heat-Shock Proteins and Photodynamic therapy
Joanne Baylis*, Craig A. Downs~, Linda R. Jones* and Scott A. Heckathorn~
*Department of Physics and Astronomy ~Department of Biology
Many cancer treatments, such as photodynamic therapy, generate active oxygen species, often in the mitochondria. These oxygen species adversely react with cellular processes, thereby destroying cancer cells and tissue. Heat-shock proteins are up-regulated in response to heat stress of other envoronmental stresses and are known to protect cells from active oxygen species. In tumor cells, heat-shock proteins are responsible for the increased resistance of cancer cells to oxidative-based anti-cancer therapies. We will first determine which heat-shock proteins accumulate in the mitochondria of cancer cells (lung carcinomas). We will determine if the over-expression of specific heat-shock proteins in the mitochondria can protect cells from Photofrin-mediated photodynamic therapy through protection of mitochondrial electron transport. Bulletin of the American Physical Society 43 November 1998.

Summer 1998 Optical Properties of Photosensitized Collagen
Joanne studied the optical properties of collagen with and without Photofrin. Reflectance and transmittance are measured with an integrating sphere; the absorption and scattering coefficients were calculated with the one-dimensional diffusion approximation. The objective was to determine the effect of sensitizer binding to collagen on the optical properties of tumors.


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