Diana Vaca is a second year MIMG student. She conducts research in Dr. Lily Wu’s lab which is centered around anticancer treatments for aggressive forms of cancer. Primarily, her lab is focused on exploring the anticancer effects of widely used cholesterol drugs, statins, on aggressive metastatic cancers. The ultimate goal being drug refinement/development, with the help of other departments for the creation of the most effective drug conformations. Currently the main focus of the lab is to gain understanding on the pathway of inhibition that the cholesterol drugs take while also exploring the pathway to metastasis for each cancer type that they work with. Diana’s individual project is centered around determining the efficiency/potency
of each drug derivative on highly aggressive triple negative breast cancer cells through a series of multiple half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) tests. In addition to actually running these tests, analysis of each test is possible due to high throughput confocal imaging done with the molecular screening shared resource (MSSR) at UCLA. In addition, images are then analyzed using AI networks and the results are then used for determination of the most effective statin derivative. Diana would very much like to thank her lab mates, mentors, and her PI, Dr Lily Wu for the opportunity to conduct research on her team.