Henning Koehn
Doctor of Philosophy, (Biochemistry)
Study Completed: 2006
College of Sciences
Citation
Thesis Title
Reduction in ChemoSensitivity with Breast Cancer Chemotheraphy.
Read article at Massey Research Online: 
Dr Koehn studied the expression of proteins in a number of breast cancer cell lines in response to a standard chemotherapy drug, as most currently used drugs are effective in only 50% of patients due to drug resistance. Observations showed that the expression of key proteins, responsible for DNA repair, was significantly altered in response to the drug. This suggests that drug treatment can signal an increase in DNA repair processes in many cancer cells, thus, negating the effects of the drug. Dr Koehn also demonstrated that these same proteins showed altered expression in solid breast tumour samples from a number of cancer patients, making a clear link between the results of experiments in the laboratory and the clinical situation. This work provides a framework for further study of tumour samples for the development of both diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for the treatment of breast cancer.
Supervisors
Professor Kathryn Stowell
Dr R Isaacs