Sunday June 6th

Hey again!

Keith flew home today and I went to a picnic and met the group I will be working with. Dr Huang says I will be on the 2nd floor of the Biomedical Tower, and my professor ("mentor") is Cenny Taslim. Everyone was very friendly and nice... and Asian! There were all kinds of languages flying back and forth, and I am the token Caucasian! It felt a little like being back in Korea. We had a small group from the Indiana campus here to participate in the conferences Monday - Wed.

I am very impressed with Columbus so far - I feel a little like the country mouse that is visiting the city. Keith and I went to a movie at the Easton Mall - it was really cool. The snack bar is more like a self-serve convenience store, and the parking lot had a lit up counter that listed how many spaces were available by monitoring traffic in and out of the structure. We tried two different pizza places, and found a promising looking Mexican food restaurant for future visits. The city isn't all crowded, and the river is pretty - our picnic tonight was right on the water, and the weather was perfect. Ohio State campus is huge! There are 50,000 students there, compared with Meredith's 2,000. So far, with Keith's guidance while he was here, and my trusty GPS, I am getting around just fine tho. Traffic has been mild, over the weekend at least, and my hotel is not far from campus.

Tomorrow's conference is the annual workshop for the Center of Cancer Systems Biology where

"The OSU-IU Center for Cancer Systems Biology (CCSB, formerly designated as OSU-IU ICBP) has assembled a team of 25 computational and bench scientists to study epigenetic control of critical signaling networks in prostate, breast, and ovarian cancers. Based on our recent progress and preliminary findings, we will test the hypothesis that epigenetic deregulation of androgen receptor (AR), estrogen receptor a (ERa), or TGF-ß/SMAD4 signaling-mediated transcriptional networks underlies the transition of a hormone-/chemo-sensitive phenotype to a hormone-/chemo-insensitive phenotype in cancer. We anticipate that the study will yield significant insight into the role of permissive and non-permissive chromatin in cancer and drug-resistant disease."

Got all that? I actually find all this very interesting - the way that parts of genes are activated that keep cancer medications from affecting cancer cells. If that part of the DNA isn't activated, the medication works just fine. I am not sure yet what my part will be in working with the group - since I am a math major, I will probably be crunching data and using some computer programs to compare some cell analysis with others. Guess I will know more later this week.

In the meantime, I think the house is still standing. The kids seem to be doing fine, and assure me that they are feeding the dog. I am very excited to be here and am making plans for a lot of touristy things to do. The hotel takes care of breakfast for me every morning, and even supplies dinner four nights a week, if I am here at the right times. Next week I will check out my new ward here and get to know more people.

Later!

Leslie