Megan R Reed, PhD

Research Program: Cancer Biology Faculty Rank: Post Doctoral Fellow Campus: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College: College of Medicine Department: Biochem & Molecular Histone Epigenet

Cancer Research Interest

• Disease Site Focus: Cutaneous/Melanoma, Brain, Gynecology
• Research Focus Area: Treatment
• Type of Research: Clinical
• Research Keywords: functional precision medicine, cancer, immunology
• Research Interest Statement: High grade brain tumors and brain metastases are difficult to treat for many reasons; they generally have an abysmal response to standard-of-care chemotherapeutics, responders have high rates of recurrence, and survival is greatly reduced. The main factor contributing to this poor response and eventual resistance is tumor heterogeneity. Organoid model systems eliminate the lack of heterogeneity found in two-dimensional culture, quickly and accurately recapitulating the patient-specific tumor microenvironment. Our plan is to combine comparative transcriptomics with personalized PDO screening, making UAMS uniquely capable of generating personalized treatment strategies. Traditional precision medicine platforms use genomics-based data to identify actionable mutations, but do not test potential therapies on PDOs. Our innovative paradigm will use a combination of comparative transcriptomics/proteomics and functional validation of target compounds to establish bespoke therapeutic treatments and improve patient outcomes. Our comparative transcriptomics platform analyzes patient gene expression patterns relative to a compendium of other solid tumors to identify upregulated pathways which are linked to targetable endpoints (i.e. FDA approved drugs). We will expand this paradigm to include unbiased proteomics given proteins are the primary targets of cancer-based therapies. We also hope to further expand upon this pipeline to include screening for PDO immune response. Our functional validation step using PDO models can generate drug sensitivity data in as little as a week and as such is more cost and time effective than traditional in vivo models. We have used this platform to generate preliminary data and would like to continue to build upon these findings to strengthen the case for functional precision medicine.

Contact Information

• Email Address: MRREED@UAMS.EDU
• Profiles Research Networking Software: View Profile

Recent Publications

• Guzman G, Pellot K, Reed MR, Rodriguez A. CAR T-cells to treat brain tumors. Brain research bulletin. 2023 196:76-98. PMID: 36841424.
• Guzman G, Reed MR, Bielamowicz K, [et al.]. CAR-T Therapies in Solid Tumors: Opportunities and Challenges. Current oncology reports. 2023. PMID: 36853475. PMCID: PMC10110629.
• Urbaniak A, Reed MR, Heflin B, [et al.]. Anti-glioblastoma activity of monensin and its analogs in an organoid model of cancer. Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie. 2022 153:113440. PMID: 36076555. PMCID: PMC9472755.
• Delgado M, Rainwater RR, Heflin B, [et al., including Reed MR]. Primary acute lymphoblastic leukemia cells are susceptible to microtubule depolymerization in G1 and M phases through distinct cell death pathways. The Journal of biological chemistry. 2022 298(6):101939. PMID: 35436470. PMCID: PMC9123221.
• Reed MR, Lyle AG, De Loose A, [et al.]. A Functional Precision Medicine Pipeline Combines Comparative Transcriptomics and Tumor Organoid Modeling to Identify Bespoke Treatment Strategies for Glioblastoma. Cells. 2021 10(12). PMID: 34943910. PMCID: PMC8699481.
• Urbaniak A, Reed MR, Fil D, [et al.]. Single and double modified salinomycin analogs target stem-like cells in 2D and 3D breast cancer models. Biomedicine & pharmacotherapy = Biomedecine & pharmacotherapie. 2021 141:111815. PMID: 34130123. PMCID: PMC8429223.
• Reed MR, Maddukuri L, Ketkar A, [et al.]. Inhibition of tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase impairs DNA damage tolerance and repair in glioma cells. NAR cancer. 2021 3(2):zcab014. PMID: 33870196. PMCID: PMC8034706.
• Ketkar A, Smith L, Johnson C, [et al., including Reed MR]. Human Rev1 relies on insert-2 to promote selective binding and accurate replication of stabilized G-quadruplex motifs. Nucleic acids research. 2021 49(4):2065-2084. PMID: 33555350. PMCID: PMC7913688.