Dr. Mona Al-Gizawiy Awarded Two AHW Grants

Mona Al-Gizawiy, PhD, research assistant professor of biophysics, was awarded two $50,000 one-year grants from the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment.

One project, which will be performed in collaboration with Shama Mirza, PhD, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, will apply high-throughput characterization of iron regulating proteins via mass spectrometry-based proteomics to analyze rat plasma from previous glioblastoma xenograft studies. The aim of the project is to answer pressing questions regarding response to therapy, such as differences between short-term and long-term survivors.

The other project will evaluate the novel iron mimetic, gallium maltolate, in a panel of metastatic breast cancer cell lines. The intent is to submit a set of banked primary and brain metastatic breast cancer biopsy specimens for immunohistochemical analysis to discover the expression patterns of various know iron regulating proteins.