Josue Rodriguez

Breast cancer progression is a complex process brought about by detrimental cell behaviors originating from the disruption of expression patterns across several different types of RNA. Of these RNAs, long non-coding RNAs are distinct by serving a regulatory purpose in several oncological pathways and events via interaction with coding RNAs. Despite this, lncRNAs remain understudied across cancer types, and the precise functional role of most lncRNAs is unknown. Using high-resolution, multiplexed molecular imaging, I intend to obtain quantitative and spatial information of lncRNA expression in breast cancer samples. These data will inform further transcriptomic analysis, allowing us to infer potential lncRNA interaction with other imaged mRNAs and assign the likely function of these cancer-relevant lncRNAs in cancer biology.