Student Researchers' Society Topics

Detecting unbalanced chromosomal abnormalities is a frequent task of histopathological diagnostics, commonly these provide valuable prognostic, sometimes predictive information. Often only formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue samples are available, so the method of choice is fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Optimal cut off values, and limit of detection are not firmly established in this situation, since overlapping or truncation of nuclei result in abnormal signal patterns. Various normal tissues will be used to test the performance of FISH using various probes mimicking positive and negative controls. The optimal statistical method of analysis will be determined and recommendations will be formulated to aid everyday routine diagnostics.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a genetically heterogeneous disease, often presenting with chromosomal translocations associated with different prognosis. BCR-ABL1 translocation occurs in 5-10% of pediatric and 25-30% of adult ALL cases and is associated with a poor prognosis. An additional 15-25% of cases show gene expression profiles very simiar to BCR-ABL1 positive cases, however, the translocation is not present. These latter cases are refered to as Ph-like ALL, and are known to associate with dismal prognosis. IKZF1 deletions, as well as other ABL1 translocations occur in this heterogeneous subtype of ALL, and recently, detection of these abnormalities is gaining attention.

During this project we aim to retrospectively investigate BCR-ABL1, other ABL1 translocations as well as IKZF1 deletions in our database of approx. 200 ALL cases and to correlate the findings with other clinicopathological data.

Co-supervisor: Dr. KATONA, Krisztián

Plasma cell lesions of the oral cavity are frequent changes, but the clonality of the cells are rarely analysed in this localisation. Biopsy samples of the past several years will be reviewed and the clonality of the plasma cells will be studied in this project. The main goal is to find a correlation between the localisation and clonal nature of the plasma cell lesions.