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Lab Life Video Series: Kalish Laboratory
Published on
· Last Updated 3 months 4 weeks ago
Jennifer M. Kalish, PhD, Director of the Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome Program of Excellence at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, leads a multi-disciplinary research team focused on Beckwith-Wiedemann and other overgrowth syndromes. The team works to understand why overgrowth leads to cancer in children. In this episode of Lab Life, Dr. Kalish, Dr. Snehal Nirgude, Dr. Elisia Tichy, Dr. Sarah Finstuen-Magro, and Shannon Tringola share their experiences being a part of the lab, and the impact the work has for treating patients.
Transcript
Lab Life Kalish Laboratory Transcript
0:00
Jennifer M. Kalish, PhD
I was drawn to this area of research based on a question that a patient family asked me.
0:05
And that question was, why did my child develop cancer?
0:07
And the answer to that question was not available in the medical literature. When the question was first asked.
0:13
And what I realized was we had many patients and families that we cared for, lots of patient samples, and we had the tools that we both had in hand and were able to develop to start answering that question of why does cancer develop in ORS?
0:28
[Text] Lab Life: Kalish Laboratory
Dr. Kalish
0:37
My lab focuses on Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome and other overgrowth syndromes, and cancer predisposition to try and understand why overgrowth leads to cancer in children.
0:46
Our lab focuses on the translation between patient care and research.
0:52
To do that, we collect lots of samples from our patients and are really trying to understand how normal growth turns into overgrowth to cancer.
1:00
We do that through a number of technologies, including developing cell-based models for these different tissue types that are affected by overgrowth and cancer in these children.
1:09
And we also have lots of patient samples through the ORS research registry that we've created.
1:13
Working with patient families drives our research questions. The questions that we address in the lab are ones that have originated in the clinic, and we're basically trying to identify and fix gaps in the care we can provide our patients by understanding the basic mechanisms of disease.
1:29
[Text] The Kalish Lab studies how genetic and epigenetic alterations lead to overgrowth syndromes. This work focuses largely on patients with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome and understanding the transition from normal growth to overgrowth to tumor formation.x
1:41
[Text] In some cases, children with BWS can develop tumors, most commonly, hepatoblastoma and Wilms tumor.
1:50
Snehal Nirgude, PhD
We sequence some of the BWS livers and the non-BWS liver, and then we realize that BWS livers are more metabolically active.
1:59
So this was quite interesting, because a metabolically active liver implies that fat metabolism pathways in BWS are super active, which might potentially increase the oxidative damage in these livers.
2:14
And increase the risk of the blastoma, which is a liver cancer.
2:17
Elisia Tichy, PhD
BWS affects 1 in 10,000 children. There’s actually a lot of kiddos that can be affected with this disease.
2:24
Here at CHOP with BWS, we have our clinic, we have our registry, we have the opportunity to interact with the patients themselves.
2:32
It’s a multi-disciplinary thing. You’re seeing what you’re trying to treat.
2:36
You have the opportunity to actually help a kid with BWS with the research you’re doing.
2:42
It’s not like you’re trying to check a box in a scientific paper or you just want to publish something.
2:47
You’re out there trying to actually help kids with a disease.
2:51
Shannon Tringola
Well, out of undergrad, I wasn’t entirely sure what area of research I wanted to specifically focus on.
2:58
And this lab is great for that because we have a lot different aspects.
3:01
The genetics, the oncology, histology with the tissue collection. So there’s a lot of different areas that I get to work in, and that’s helping me understand what I want to do.
3:10
We have a good atmosphere in the lab. It’s very collaborative and definitely very supportive.
3:16
Sarah Finstuen-Magro, MD
I love kids, I love families, and I think that childhood research gets a lot of attention, but there are a lot of spaces that are overlooked in childhood disease and childhood illness.
3:25
And I think there is a really unique opportunity here with the resources we have and the technology that we have here and a lot of innovative minds to be able to look at patients and conditions that don’t get that attention.
3:36
And that’s not possible at other institutions. And so, I think that CHOP provides a real wealth of resources and availability for us to go after hard problems and hard conditions.
3:46
BWS is a really fun and interesting disease to study. It’s really challenging, there’s not good models, there’s not very much understanding in the field, and there’s very few groups that are working on it.
3:55
But we get the opportunity to really try to push boundaries and try to bring solutions to families that don’t really have any other options.
4:02
[Text] Want to learn more?
https://www.research.chop.edu/kalish-laboratory
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