Dr. Brent Ferrell and graduate student Matt Jenkins challenged each other to a game of Uno while we asked them some questions about their research.
Interested in their research? Read more here:
Isocitrate dehydrogenase mutations are associated with altered IL-1β responses in acute myeloid leukemia - Leukemia 2022
Video Transcript
Matt Jenkins: No, I already drew two…you hit me with another draw two?!
Brent Farrell: Yes, I did.
M: OK, you do some explaining while I draw these cards, then.
[VI4 Scientists Doing Things]
B: I’m Brent Farrell, I’m a physician-scientist in Hematology & Oncology.
M: I’m Matt Jenkins, I’m Brent’s student and fourth year in the Pharmacology Department.
M: I’ll go first. I’m just going to start by skipping you and skipping you again.
B: Not very nice…
[Q: What does your lab study?]
B: We study myeloid malignancies, which are a group of clonal bone marrow disorders, including Myelodysplastic Syndrome and Acute Myeloid Leukemia. And then Clonal Myeloid Plessis is a kind of pre-cursor to those, potentially, so we study those as well. We are interested in how the entire bone marrow ecosystem is affected by these diseases.
M: Like how he said, the entire marrow ecosystem and also how you progress from clonal hematopoiesis to MDS to AML. Since about 1% or so of patients will progress to AML, or sorry, to MDS from clonal hematopoiesis and that is often poorly understood, so some of the stuff I’m doing is focused on understanding that.
M: Skip you. Uno. And I won.
[Q: Why is AML so difficult to treat?]
M: As opposed to a solid tumor where there is a clear immune cell cancer cell boundary, in Leukemia, the cancer cell is also an immune cell.
B: I think the fact that it’s a heterogenous disease is one of the biggest issues.
M: Man, I really do not like playing by your rules.
B: it makes it hard.
M: Also, who shuffled this deck? I’m drawing all blues.
[Q: How Prevalent are these diseases?]
B: AML: there’s approximately 22,000 new cases of AML in the United States every year. MDS is a little less clear, somewhere between 30,000-60,000 cases yearly.
B: You have to play at two.
M: Oh, I have to play. Yeah, I have a two.
B: UNO. I won.
M: It’s really hard talking and playing UNO at the same time.
[Explain your post doc project in one sentence]
B: Intercellular signaling in AML. Oh, I have to say a sentence not a phrase. Intercellular signaling in AML is heterogenous.
[Explain your PdD in one sentence]
M: Trying to unravel the mechanisms whereby how an epigenetic regulator causes aberrant inflammatory responses.
[Q: What’s your favorite experiment to run?]
M: I think probably I feel most in my wheelhouse when I’m running flow.
B: What kind flow cytometry?
M: Specifically, phospho-flow cytometry. So, we can actually measure the phosphorylation of signaling proteins that are involved in inflammation in my project. We can actually measure that in single cells individually by staining them with antibodies. Essentially these antibodies will attach to different proteins that the cell makes so we can both identify what a cell is and how that cell’s responding to a drug or to a cytokine.
M: Reverse back to me. Uno, and I won.
Kaitlyn Browning: You won two now, right?
M: Yup, that's the tiebreaker.