Amanda Parker Department of Pharmacology Tulane University 1430 Tulane Avenue New Orleans, Louisiana 70112 aparker2@tulane.edu I am a senior Ph.D. graduate student in the laboratory working on determining mechanisms of chemoresistance in breast cancer cells. Our laboratory has established an isogenic model of breast cancer cell chemoresistance using the MCF-7 cell line. Using this model, I am building on work previously done in the laboratory investigating signaling pathways which are altered between these chemosensitive and chemoresistant breast cancer variants. Ceramide and the sphingomyelin pathway have been found to play significant roles in regulation of apoptosis and chemoresistance. Defects in ceramide accumulation, either through decreased ceramide production or increased ceramide metabolism contribute to a drug-resistant phenotype. I am currently testing a number of ceramide analogues, both currently available and newly synthesized, to demonstrate that restoration of ceramide signaling can bypass acquired cellular resistance mechanisms and can convert the chemoresistant MCF-7 cell to the chemosensitive MCF-7 cell phenotype. Using these analogues, I am investigating how these ceramide analogs affect key cell survival and apoptosis signaling pathways, such as PKC, with the goal of using these analogs as a basis for new chemotherapeutic drug development.     Characterization of Signal Transduction Pathways Altered in TNF-alpha and TRAIL-resistant MCF-7 Cells: Potential Novel Targets in Breast Cancer Chemotherapy AP Parker, Y Tang, S Elliot, R Bittman, JA McLachlan, ME Burow, and BS Beckman download a PDF file of this poster   Amanda Parker Grant Information Pre-doctoral training grant (2001-2004) Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase and Protein Kinase C as Molecular Determinants of Chemoresistance in Breast Cancer Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Fund (DAMD17-01-1-0432)   Amanda Parker's CV download a PDS file of this CV