Andy Lo

 alo@bccancer.bc.ca

Department:	Cancer Genetics
Research Role:	Summer/Co-op/Undergrad Student
Birthplace:	Taipei, Taiwan

Research Interests:

Methylation-induced silencing in squamous lung carcinoma

Mechanism of methylated MDM4 and COP1 genes in lung tumorgenesis

Methylation-Sensitive Restriction Enzyme digestion PCR (MSRE-PCR) techniques and optimization

The focus of my research is to adapt the MSRE-PCR technique in the Wan Lam lab to detect gene-specific aberrant methylation patterns in lung cancer cell genomes; that is, changes in the epigenome during cancer progression. Methylation of specific CpG islands is associated to early embryonic development, gene inactivation and tissue differentiation. More noticeably, GpG island methylation is recognized as an essential contributor to gene silencing of tumor suppressor genes. The functional consequences of aberrant hypermethylation are unequivocal ? the affected genes are silenced, and their function is stably lost. There are now hundred of genes, many with tumor suppressor function, known to be hypermethylated in various neoplasms. MDM4 and COP1 are two genes related to p53 tumor suppressor gene and their methylation status may?potentially act as diagnostic biomarkers for early cancer diagnosis, outcome prediction and therapy adjustments.

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