KU Biology Student Researcher: Darren Boydston

Darren Boydston is a postbaccalaureate  undertaking a year of research as part of the NIH Prep Program. He graduated with a B.S. in Molecular, Cellular &Developmental Biology, and minored in Philosophy.

Darren's research at KU

Darren has been working in Dr. Kristi Neufeld’s lab, studying Colon Cancer, and more specifically, a protein called APC, Adenomatous polyposis coli.

“How cancer works it that cells divide when they aren’t supposed to. We have tumors that form because our cells are dividing too much, or nothing is telling the to stop dividing. The signals in our cells work like stoplights, and green signals tell the cell to divide, and the red to stop dividing. The Protein APC works like the red stoplight and tells the cell to stop and not divide until something else gives the cell the green light. Whenever the protein APC is mutated, it doesn’t have that stoplight and the cell will divide like crazy because nothing is telling it to stop diving. APC mutations are responsible for over 80% of all colon cancers. So our lab is looking at APC and how it might be affected other aspects of our colon. [...]”

“Our colon needs mucus inside of it to function properly, this mucus helps food move through our colon and is where our microbiome lives, it’s really important to have the mucus, otherwise the tissue can get really damaged. So ultimately were tying to see if APC affects the signaling that leads to cancer, and if APC breaks, does this lead to reduced mucus, increased inflammation, and reduced wound
healing that indirectly promotes cancer and gives it a nice environment to grow. The more we can learn about the basic aspects of the protein and how it works, the more we can focus our treatments on the symptoms that will help us give people with colon cancer a better quality of life, and to help us create new therapies to help target colon cancer.”

How did you become interested in doing Colon Cancer research?

“I worked in a couple labs before [joining Neufeld’s lab] when I first came to KU I was interested in being a medical doctor.  I was curious about how disease affects us at the cellular level. The more I got into those classes, I realized I [could...]  research disease at the cellular level without having to become a medical doctor.  I got involved in research and realized I really was interested in cellular pathology, in understanding the molecular mechanism that makes the disease work in the way it does, [to find] what produces the symptoms in the way it does, and what ultimately causes the disease. 

Along the path I eventually ended up working in colon cancer because cancer is very much a molecular disease, it made sense to work in cancer because its really about those molecular mechanisms.”

What does your research look like on a day-to-day basis?

“I do a whole lot of cell culture, I work with colon cancer cells called DLD-1’s, they take quite a bit of maintenance, especially in the numbers I’m working with. Specifically, my project, I’m using CRISPR-Cas9.  The system lets me edit the genes of the cells, and I’m trying to make my own cell lines, so we can use those to study APC.  I’m constantly working with these cells and trying to edit their genes.  And if I do edit those genes, I make sure that those gene edits match up with what we were trying to do.”

What did you find most challenging about doing your project? 

“I have diabetes and I have a diabetic tremor, so I can’t hold my hands steady and particularly with molecular biology work you do a lot of pipetting.  You have to keep your hand really steady and move the tip down into these tiny little tubes, and you have to make sure your thumb goes down at the right amount, or liquid will spill everywhere, or you won’t get the right amount [in the tubes]. 
When I first started research, that was a really big challenge for me. People without a tremor can easily pick up how to pipette and get really quick at it.  As for me, it took a lot of time to pick up the liquid, move it over, and be sure I was in the right tube.  After several months, and working with some graduate students, I got much more use to it, and now I know how much pressure to put with my thumb that works for me, or how to hold the pipette in a way that works for me. So, I can do the research without spilling tubes and things like that.”

What advice would you offer to other students interested in research?

“Get involved in research as soon as you possibly can. There are plenty of labs where you don’t have to have previous experience, where you don’t have to know anything about what they are studying to get involved.  The more you are around, in the lab, and can hear the grad students and researchers talking about the projects, the more you can think about and understand how your supposed to approach research. So, get involved as soon as you can, and the rest will go from there.”

What do you plan to do after you graduate from KU?

“I’m Interviewing for PhD programs, entering a PhD program  in the fall of 2022. [I’m] looking to do PhD in molecular cellular biology, or some variation of that, ultimately my goal is to teach, to become a professor and to continue my research, in the basic science of cell biology with an emphasis on how disease affects cell biology. ”