Thesis (M.A.)--Boston UniversityThis project presents a new method of developing genomic signatures of carcinogenicity and offers a way of understanding the mechanisms of action for environmental chemicals, and a method for characterizing the carcinogenicity of said chemicals. Specifically, this project is an effort to “use a high-dimensional assay that allows for the genome-wide characterization of the transcriptional response to chemical exposure at a cost unmatched by other technologies, paired with the biological and computational expertise necessary to maximally leverage the information produced by the assay.”11 The primary aim of these preliminary experiments was to determine if the protocol of treating the cells at Boston University under strict IBC-approved conditions and then gathering data at the Broad Institute (Boston, Massachusetts) is a reasonable technique for obtaining high-throughput genomic signatures with chemicals of unknown carcinogenicity status. The results of this experiment demonstrate this methodology for obtaining genomic signatures has the potential to be a replicable, high-throughput procedure to assist in creating a "carcinogenome" database (CGDB)
