What are you currently working on? “I'm a PhD student in Dr. Silvia Penuela’s lab in the ACB department. My project focuses specifically on pannexin 3 in skin and skin cancer. Pannexin 3 is part of a family of channel-forming proteins that are important for cell-to-cell communication. Before I started my project, we knew that this protein was present in the skin and that it's important in cellular differentiation and cutaneous wound healing. Nothing was really known about how it's regulated as the skin ages, its role in the establishment of proper skin structure, or even what it does in tissue homeostasis. I've been characterizing this pannexin in skin using a pannexin 3 knockout mouse model, and investigating what happens to the skin architecture and properties when the protein is absent. The second area of interest of my project is looking at the role of pannexin 3 in skin cancer. Previous findings have shown that pannexin 3 levels are decreased in squamous cell carcinoma, which is a skin cancer that arises from keratinocytes that are in the epidermis — that's the uppermost layer of the skin. They found that there are decreased levels, but no one has investigated why this is the case. So, I’m using human cell lines, patient-derived tumours, and a mouse cutaneous carcinoma model to try to determine the effect of pannexin 3 downregulation on the malignant properties of squamous cell carcinoma.”
Brooke O’Donnell Graduate Student PhD Candidate Contact Info bodonne3@uwo.ca
What are some of your future goals? “When you're a student, it’s a given that you want to finish all your experiments, publish your papers, and graduate. Further to that, my goal with my research is to build a strong foundation for the pannexin 3 in squamous cell carcinoma project in the lab. It’s a new area of research for the lab that I was able to start with the guidance of Dr. Penuela and a surgical oncologist named Dr. Kathy Roth, and I take pride in the fact that I created this project and did the preliminary work. I hope that it's one the ways I leave my mark on the Penuela lab after I've graduated. As for my career, that's a hard question to answer because I'm still in the work phase of my project, and there's been a lot of uncertainty in research (and the world) over the past couple of years. I originally thought I wanted to go into industry and not continue in academia, but I've learned that you have to keep all your doors open and not shut yourself off to any opportunities. Maybe if you asked me this question again in a year, I would give you a different answer, but that's where I'm at right now.” 11
“It was one of those things where you keep an open mind and end up finding something that you really enjoy doing.”
