mgr Aneta Kowal
ORCID: 0000-0002-5341-4851
The topic of my dissertation is "Application of Infrared and Raman Spectroscopy for identification of potential diagnostic and prognostic markers in serum and bone marrow of pediatric patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL)".
Individual Research Project focuses on evaluation of vibrational spectroscopy techniques combined with chemometrics data analysis as early detecion, prognosis of cancer and treatment outcome predicion intelligent clinical decision suport tool for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) in pediatric patients.
Childhood malignancy is a relatively rare disease. Most common of all childhood cancers – leukemia - accounts for about 25% of all cancers in children. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia arises from acculumation of leukemic lymphocyte precursors arrested in their ability to differentiate into mature cells but demonstrating enhanced ability to uncontrolled proliferation and resistance to apoptosis. Phenotypic and genotypic heterogeneity of Acute Lympoblastic Leukemia result in distinct manifestation and prognostic or therapeutic implications.
The complementary vibrational spectroscopy techniques of Raman Spectroscopy and Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Imaging will be apllied to detect biochemical changes in sera and bone marrow aspirates of pediatric ALL in order to establish new biomarkers for early screening to detect this pediatric leukemia. These label-free, non-destructive, rapid spectroscopic tools provide spectral fingerprint of samples that reflects its molecular composition in the form of spectra. In recent years many researches have demonstated the application of FTIR and Raman Spectroscopy for early detection of various cancer by revealing cancer-specific chemical changes of analyzed tissues, cells or biofluids. But, there are very limited data on FTIR and Raman spectroscopy application for cancer detection in pediatrics. Further, as these techniques allow to investigate physicochemical changes at the cellular level for better understanding of leukemic cell biology and establishing predictor markers we will track spectra data of blastic cells before treatment administration and following the drug trematment.
Identification of novel diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for patients who present with ALL and introduction of vibrational spectroscopy for clinical purpose in the form well-implemented decision-making support tool or algorithm may be benefical for clinical purpose, especially for early screening, diagnosis for leukemia, cancer prognosis and treatment response monitoring.
Publications:
- Chaber R, Kowal A, Jakubczyk P, Arthur C, Łach K, Wojnarowska-Nowak R, Kusz K, Zawlik I, Paszek S, Cebulski J. A Preliminary Study of FTIR Spectroscopy as a Potential Non-Invasive Screening Tool for Pediatric Precursor B Lymphoblastic Leukemia. Molecules. 2021 Feb 22;26(4):1174. doi: 10.3390/molecules26041174. PMID: 33671817; PMCID: PMC7926870.