Douglas Kung attended the Medical Sciences Academy at Freehold High School from 2013 – 2017 and received an early introduction to formal independent research and professional healthcare. Access to biochemistry and intermediate biology courses with large emphases on innovation and research afforded Douglas an interest in life sciences, which leads to his matriculation to Stevens Institute of Technology in the fall of 2017. Douglas has been pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Biology and plans to graduate in May of 2021.
While at Stevens Institute of Technology, Douglas joined Iwanicki Lab in the summer of 2018, and initially studied the Rho-associated coiled-coil kinase (ROCK) and the effect of its exogenous inhibition on the disseminative properties of Iwanicki Lab’s specialty 3D in vitro organoid structures – in which he used live-imaging techniques to demonstrate a notable attenuating effect of both Y-27632 and an anti-ROCKII shRNA construct on the extrusions of overgrown ME-180 (cervical) structures.
Douglas’s early studies at Iwanicki Lab endowed in him a keen interest in organoid culturing, live-imaging, and drug therapy.
Douglas’s work with ROCK inhibition and its influence over metastatic properties of 3D in vitro structures awarded him a competitive summer scholarship with Steven’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OIE) in May of 2019. As one of the selected twenty undergraduates to participate, Douglas built upon the foundation of his early work by studying an exogenous ROCKII inhibitor already in clinical trials (AT-13148) and utilized the same 3D structures and imaging techniques in tandem with cell-adhesion assays to further elucidate the effects of ROCK inhibition on ovarian cancer dissemination. Along with the other OIE participants, Douglas concluded his scholarship with a poster presentation regarding his work on AT-13148 and its market share in ovarian chemotherapeutic agents at the annual OIE symposium in November 2019 and won first prize.
With a scholarship from the Center of Healthcare Innovation for the 2019-2020 academic year, Douglas spent his junior year once again exercising his interest in organoid culture and live-imaging to explore the possible therapeutic effects of an experimental pan-CD29 (ITGB1) inhibitor, OS2966, and demonstrated a dose-dependent but effective diminishment in extrusion length of ovarian carcinoma organoids. Douglas concluded the scholarship with a mock research article and a presentation to the chair of the department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.
Douglas hopes that his work at Iwanicki Lab will be of use for the years to come and is happy to contribute a small amount to the repertoire of data the lab has generated; he enjoys preparing and imaging organoids, academic writing, and long nights in the lab.
