Undergraduate Biology Student Researcher: Alexa Magstadt
"Alexa Magstadt is studying Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology with a minor in Spanish. She is part of the Chancellors Club Scholar, a BioScholar & a Undergraduate Research Assistant in the Dixon Lab."
Alexa's Research at KU
“I work with a small molecule inhibitor that was newly developed to treat cancer with mutations in a protein called KRAS or Kirsten rat sarcoma. KRAS was previously considered undruggable and it's really hard to treat. They recently developed this inhibitor that's able to target this protein specifically, and they've shown a lot of really great results in pancreatic cancer but its treatment implications in colorectal cancer have not really been explored. So, I've been working to figure out how we can adapt this inhibitor for colon cancer.”
How did you first become interested in doing this kind of research?
“I knew I wanted to do research immediately when I got to KU as a freshman, and I actually joined the Behr Soil Ecology lab after reaching out to faculty across both EEOB and MB, and I loved it. I worked for a year, I went to the Konza prairie and collected soil samples, it was so neat!-- but I'd always really been interested in cell biology and cancer, I have a lot of personal connections to that field, and I volunteered in a infusion suite in North Kansas City, so I spent a lot of time with those patients, and I really wanted to get into cancer research. I emailed four different professors, and now I have lab meetings with most of them, and they're all super fantastic. [I had an interview with] Doctor Dixon and we really just clicked with what he wanted me to do in the lab and what my goals were.”
How have you benefitted from attending other professor's lab meetings?
“I love lab meetings-- I meet once a week with Dr. Kristi Neufeld’s lab, they do similar research, but it's differently focused. It's so great to hear Doctor Neufeld’s perspective because she and Doctor Dixon bounce ideas off of each other so well. It's so impressive, and they collaborate together and help come up with ideas for your project that you would have never thought of before. Having all that support is so helpful.”
What does your research look like on a day-to-day basis?
“I do a lot of 2D cell culture, so maintaining those cell lines and planning for new experiments. I have to unfreeze cells that I'm going to use, treat them with the drug, conduct the experiments, and then analyze that type of data. I do a lot of Western blotting, immunofluorescence staining, RNA isolation, things like that. [We use] qPCR to try and determine what is going on in those cells after we treat them with this inhibitor. Plus a lot of the day to day is just helping maintain our mice colonies and other lab tasks.”
Have you made any discoveries?
“My biggest discoveries have been related to specifically how this inhibitor targets my particular mutation. I work with KRAS G12D, a glycine is replaced with an aspartic acid at the 12th amino acid residue which causes mutation, and that's what causes this protein to be constitutionally active and sending out these proliferation signals, which promotes tumor growth. I've been able to show that there's a 245-fold increase in the death of KRAS G12D cells with this inhibitor versus KRAS wild type. So its shown that it's very, very specific in inhibiting KRAS G1D2 cells and then trying to figure out exactly how are those cells dying, so what cellular pathways are implicated in that cellular death. I determined that the Map kinase pathway, which KRAS is usually known for, is not actually affected in LS 174 T cells, and it's actually the P13K/AKT/mTOR pathway that's causing the cells to die. So that's exciting from a therapeutic standpoint, because once you figure out how the cells are dying, you can target those other targets as well and synergistically increase the amount of death that's happening and reduce the chance for resistance. Working on that, it's hard to characterize those signaling pathways, but it's exciting!”
What's something interesting you've learned from being in a lab?
“Dr. Dixon's really great at explaining the method. He really wants his students to know why you are doing what you're doing, and you're not just doing experiments to learn a technique, whatever you're doing, he wants you to be getting data from. He wants either a positive or negative result to teach you something and for you to understand the process of every reagent, to know what it is actually doing and why and why it is important, and how to troubleshoot when things go wrong.
I've learned a lot about how to plan and conduct experiments, and how to manage my time. Dr. Dixon is great at teaching you how to present in a way that tells a story, because that's what you want to do when you're communicating your research. What is the story? What are you doing? How does it all fit into the bigger picture? Learning how to make figures and posters and presentations that are really effective, both the graduate students and Doctor Dixon has been so helpful. I've learned so much this year.”
What was most challenging about doing your project?
“The most challenging part, I would say definitely planning experiments. Once you have some data, knowing where do I go from here?-- I found this result, but planning what the next steps are in a project is always kind of hard. The biggest thing for me is time management, being an undergraduate researcher, I'm in 19 credit hours, I'm running around Haworth and ISB, and Wesco, trying to do experiments, split my cells, go to class, then come back work on my media. Balancing being an undergraduate student, homework, and having a major independent research project just from a time standpoint is a challenge.”
What advice would you offer to other students facing similar challenges?
“The advice I always give people when they're interested in research is just be curious and look at it as not like a chore, but like an opportunity, like something exciting. To be excited to read about what a faculty is doing and just find something that actually really interests you, because trying to do research, forcing yourself into something that you're not passionate about, it's just it's unpleasant for everyone, so find something that you really care about. If there's some type of research, even if it's not hard science. and then just don't be afraid to reach out and follow your passions. I guess it is the most basic thing ever, but it's what you’ve got to do.”
“I am currently slated to be the vice president of the Kansas Water Ski Team high, which is such a blast. We ski out at Crown Lake during the fall and spring seasons and compete throughout the Midwest at tournaments. I love doing that. I'm also involved as the service chair of the pre-medical fraternity, Phi Delta Epsilon, which I also really, really enjoy. I just love being outside, running, hiking, biking, all of that is definitely, definitely a passion of mine.”
What do you plan to do after you graduate from KU?
“My ultimate career goal is to matriculate into an MD PhD physician scientist training program where I could obtain a medical degree and graduate degree in cancer biology at the same time and hopefully become a physician scientist in the field of medical oncology. That's a huge goal, but just to continue doing research and helping people, is the is the broad picture.”