Patricia Sullivan, MD
Awards
Advance RI-CTR Pilot Projects Program (Cycle 8)
"Comparison of RNA Transcriptomal Variation Among Primary, Recurrent and Metastatic Chordoma"
The goal of this project is to explore the rich resource of the existing Brown University Health/RIH Biorespository, investigating the genetic expression of Brachyury and FGFR3 and LOH PTEN in banked primary, metastatic and recurrent tumors, and further exploring the differences in RNA transcriptomes among primary, metastatic and recurrent chordoma.
Similar to Dr. Sullivan's prior work, the patients’ past medical histories will be reviewed and the genetic expression data cross-referenced, in an effort to determine a link between target gene expression and patient recurrence and survival. The Lifespan/RIH Biorepository contains 50 human chordoma specimens (1995-present) archived in FFPE blocks in addition to 6 fresh frozen human specimens (as of October 2022). This rich resource reflects on the high clinical volume seen in Dr. Gokaslan’s spinal oncology practice.
An IRB for the collection of human primary spinal tumor samples has been approved at Lifespan/RIH (IRB #1750392) in collaboration with the Primary Tumor Research and Outcome Network (PTRON) (IRB #862559). Protocol 862559 allows biobanking of human tissue as well as the recording of patient related data when properly deidentified. Bulk RNA sequencing will start with the banked frozen tissue.
Sixteen cases of chordoma (resected 2019-2020) have been identified and pulled from the archive from 2019-2020 from the Lifespan/RIH Biorepository for initial immunohistochemical assessment of FGFR3, brachyury and PTEN expression and to determine if these samples are adequate for FFPE RNA recovery and subsequent bulk RNA sequencing. This project aligns with the mission statement of the COBRE Center for Computational Biology of Human Disease and will provide mentorship in the significant computational analysis required to interpret the bulk RNA sequencing data.