Date Thesis Awarded

6-2013

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only

Degree Name

Bachelors of Science (BS)

Department

Chemistry

Advisor

Randolph A. Coleman

Committee Members

Mark H. Forsyth

Christopher J. Abelt

Abstract

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is an incredibly deadly type of kidney cancer. This paper catalogs the creation of a mathematical model of RCC. The model focuses on transcriptional regulation via hypoxia-inducing factor (HIF), nuclear factor kappa B (NF?B), Myc-Max, p53, and the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway ; cell metabolism and cell cycle regulation are also analyzed. A model of a healthy renal cell and a renal cell carcinoma were created. When the two models were compared mathematically, it was found that the disease state seemed to mimic the behavior of the cancer in vivo. Because of its perceived accuracy, the disease model was treated with two current RCC chemotherapeutics: sunitinib and everolimus. The treatments proved moderately effective, so a cocktail treatment of the drugs was also modeled. Despite the success of the cocktail treatment in the mathematical model, in actual drug trials the cocktail treatment proved toxic. This leads to the conclusion that more research needs to be conducted, perhaps on different areas of the disease that could potentially be less toxic and more effective in treating RCC.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Comments

Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.

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