Andrew A. Quong, PhD

2009-2010 BCRF Project:
Continued support from BCRF has enabled Dr. Quong's laboratory to develop mass spectrometry methods to analyze large sets of clinical specimens. These studies allow the researchers to develop a better understand the mechanisms of tumorigenesis and for the development of new clinical tests for the early detection of breast cancer and for the response of breast cancer patients to therapy. They have identified a set of proteins that can be measured in blood that can be potential diagnostic for the detection of breast cancer. Validation of these proteins as potential markers is ongoing.

Over the coming year, they will continue their studies in determining the changes to the protein levels in tumors with the ultimate goal of measuring these changes in patients for early detection and for assisting with their treatment. They will use laser capture micro-dissection to separate epithelial cells from the stromal cells and examine changes in these two cell types separately using mass spectrometry based proteomics. They are also measuring changes in the protein levels in the blood for patients undergoing radiation treatment to find new markers for toxicity and response to treatment.

Mid-Year Progress Report:
Support from BCRF has allowed Dr. Quong and his team to continue studies in determining the changes to the protein levels in tumors with the ultimate goal of measuring these changes in patients for early detection and for assisting with their treatment. The researchers are using laser capture micro-dissection to separate epithelial cells from the stromal cells to examine changes in these two cell types separately using mass spectrometry based proteomics. They are also continuing studies measuring changes in the protein levels in the blood for patients undergoing radiation treatment to find new markers for toxicity and response to treatment.

Bio:
Dr. Quong has been active in the areas of nanoscience, surface physics, and materials science where his work was focused on calculating their fundamental properties to better understand structure function relationships. More recently, he was responsible leading the Systems Biology effort at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and was the Deputy Director of the BioSecurity and NanoSciences Laboratory (BSNL), a basic research center. In this capability he was responsible for the oversight of the Systems Biology and Proteomics research areas.

In the proteomics area, he was responsible for bio-mass spectrometry efforts in the BSNL. This included as suite of complementary tools including an ion trap, a MALDI-TOF and a FTMS. He has successfully developed algorithms and software tools originally developed for large-scale systems studies such as chemical kinetics and applied them to biological systems such as calcium signaling. He has worked on the development of algorithms to analyze large "ohmic" datasets using fuzzy logic and multivariate analysis. His current work is in developing nanoscale platforms for cancer diagnostics and therapeutics along with systems biology and proteomic approaches to understanding the molecular mechanisms of disease.