Welcome to the Whelan Lab!
We are a bioanalytical chemistry lab studying Ovarian Cancer.
Our Motivation:
The long-term survival statistics associated with ovarian cancer have remained unchanged for decades, and most ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed only after their disease has progressed to a metastatic stage. These cancer deaths are largely preventable: early detection of ovarian cancer correlates strongly with high rates of long-term survival. Early detection of ovarian cancer remains out of reach, however, in part because the existing tests for cancer-specific proteins (biomarkers) are insufficiently informative to be useful.
We view ovarian cancer as a human health problem in need of a measurement science solution. If we can identify alternative affinity probes—displaying more reliable detection of cancer-associated proteins—we can then use these probes as the basis of new tests for ovarian cancer.
Our Motivation:
The long-term survival statistics associated with ovarian cancer have remained unchanged for decades, and most ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed only after their disease has progressed to a metastatic stage. These cancer deaths are largely preventable: early detection of ovarian cancer correlates strongly with high rates of long-term survival. Early detection of ovarian cancer remains out of reach, however, in part because the existing tests for cancer-specific proteins (biomarkers) are insufficiently informative to be useful.
We view ovarian cancer as a human health problem in need of a measurement science solution. If we can identify alternative affinity probes—displaying more reliable detection of cancer-associated proteins—we can then use these probes as the basis of new tests for ovarian cancer.
April 2020 COVID-19 Social Distancing Group Photo
Announcements
Lisa is Awarded a Fellowship!
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The Whelan Lab Welcomes More Funding!
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Lisa was selected to receive a 2020-2021 Berry Family Foundation Fellowship. Awarded through Notre Dame Advanced Diagnostics & Therapeutics, this fellowship will fully support Lisa's graduate training for one calendar year. Lisa's proposed project was "Exploring the Utility of Polyclonal Aptamers for Early Stage Ovarian Cancer Detection."
June 9, 2020 And the CBBI Fellowship goes to... Naviya!
Naviya Schuster-Little has been selected as a 2020 Chemistry-Biochemistry-Biology Interface (CBBI) fellow. This NIH-funded training grant will support Naviya for her work in proteomics and aptamer selection, including intensive training in the lab of our collaborator Manish Patankar in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. Congratulations, Naviya!!
April 8, 2020 |
The Center for Bioanalytic Metrology--a National Science Foundation Industry-University Cooperative Research Center--has funded our project "Generating Polyclonal Aptamers for Recognition of Multiple Bacterial Species." Once the lab reopens, we are excited to move this project forward!
April 6, 2020 The Whelan Lab has its First Publication
The Whelan Lab has published its first paper from the University of Notre Dame. The paper, Developing a mass spectrometry–based assay for the ovarian cancer biomarker CA125 (MUC16) using suspension trapping (STrap), can be found in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry. Please stop by our "Publications" page for a link to the paper.
Congratulations to the authors (Naviya, Sergio, and Dr. Whelan)!! March 27, 2020 |
The Whelan Lab is premier research group in the world class facility of McCourtney Hall.
- Susan Skube
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Whelan Lab Funding
-Center for Bioanalytic Metrology (an NSF-IUCRC) -T.E.A.L. Foundation -Advanced Diagnostics & Therapeutics -Indiana CTSI Disease Diagnostics Inventors Challenge -Walther Cancer Foundation (to Nicole) -CBBI (to Naviya) -Berry Family Foundation Fellowship (to Lisa) |
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