2003 Recipient — Changping Zou, MD, PhD

Changping Zou, MD, PhD

Finding Biomarkers for Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer

Project Summary

The objective of the proposed study is to identify biomarkers that can be used for early detection of ovarian cancer and for assessing the efficacy of chemoprevention agents that could potentially stop the disease from occurring. The biomarkers will be selected through searching for genes with expression changes in normal, pre-cancer, and ovarian cancer cells, and those which can be altered by chemopreventive agents. Dr. Zou will establish a molecular profile for the normal, immortalized (as a pre-cancer model) and malignant ovarian epithelial cells (as a cancer model) and characterize the in vitro responses of normal, immortalized, and malignant ovarian epithelial cells to a chemopreventive agent and verify the biomarkers in high-risk patient sample.

Bio

Dr. Zou is now an Associate Professor, Molecular, Microbial and Structural Biology, Department of Obstetrics/Gynecology, Gynecology/Oncology at the University of Connecticut.