Cancer treatment is rarely one-size-fits-all. What works for one patient may not work for another—and understanding how each person’s cancer responds to therapy is a major challenge in medicine.
Thomas Zangle, Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Utah’s John and Marcia Price College of Engineering, is working to change that. With support from an Ascender Grant, he and his team are developing new tools that could help doctors better predict how cancer will react to certain treatments—specifically in cases of melanoma, a serious form of skin cancer.
“Our broader goal is to enable precision oncology by providing patient specific predictions of drug response or resistance to help oncologists choose the right therapy for individual patients,” said Zangle.
His lab focuses on a special type of imaging known as quadrant darkfield microscopy. Unlike traditional methods that rely on chemical labels to highlight structures inside cells, this technique allows researchers to see subcellular features—like melanosomes, the pigment-filled parts of skin cells—without interfering with how the cells behave.
The Ascender Grant program via the U’s Technology Licensing Office provides funding to help University of Utah researchers bridge the critical gap between research discoveries and market-ready innovations. Designed for technologies with strong commercial potential, Ascender Grants support activities like prototype development, market validation, and scalability testing to attract entrepreneurs, investors, and licensees.
Continue reading at The Post, from the Vice Provost for Research.