Join us for a semester-end seminar with visitor Dr. Eva González Díaz on Monday, May 13th in Malone Hall 228 at 11am.
Abstract:“Bioengineering Tools for Elucidating the Crosstalk Between Cancer, the Bone Microenvironment, and the Microbiome”
Bone is a common site of cancer development. Many prevalent cancers such as breast cancer and prostate cancer disproportionally metastasize to the bones compared to other organs. Moreover, primary bone cancer, or osteosarcoma, is an aggressive primary bone tumor for which effective treatment has not improved in over 30 years. There is a great need to develop tools that could uncover novel cancer biology in the bone niche, which could facilitate drug discovery. In the first part of my talk, I will share my work on leveraging biomaterials and tissue engineering approaches to establish 3D in vitro models for studying osteosarcoma and breast/prostate cancer metastasis in the bone niche. The gut microbiome is a diverse community of microorganisms that has recently emerged as a major contributor to human health and disease. In the second part of my talk, I will share my recent work studying how alterations to the gut microbiome influence musculoskeletal health and its impact on inter-organ crosstalk.
Bio: Dr. Eva González Díaz is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at UCSF. She received her PhD in Bioengineering at Stanford University, where she developed biomaterials and tissue engineering strategies to establish 3D in vitro models of cancer progression within the bone microenvironment. In her recent work, she is studying how the gut microbiome regulates musculoskeletal biology. Dr. González Díaz is a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund PDEP Award, NIH T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Gerard J. Lieberman Fellowship, DARE Fellowship, EDGE Fellowship, and NSF-GRFP. Dr. González Díaz’s research program aims to develop tissue engineering tools to study the crosstalk between the microbiome and the bone microenvironment and their impacts on cancer progression.