Member SpotlightsTracking Cancer Signals Jennifer L. Kahler A Member Since February 2001  Jennifer Kahler’s dreams of becoming a scientist began coming true when she was hired as a lab technician at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (New York) after graduating college. Ever since grade school where she developed an appreciation and keen interest in science, Ms. Kahler availed herself of opportunities to learn new scientific skills and knowledge. While at Gettysburg College, she took part in a semester program devoted to marine biology that was sponsored by Duke University. She joined other college students on Piver’s Island, located in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, to study basic ocean processes, coastal environmental management, marine biotechnology and marine biomedicine. Her first real lab job took place while studying at the marine laboratory: to determine whether there was a synergistic effect between Simple Green (an environmentally friendly surfactant used for cleaning up contaminated environmental sites) and Achromobacter sp.in bioremediation.At Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Ms. Kahler was part of a team that worked on chronic myelogenous leukemia. She was personally responsible for the large-scale tissue culture preparation of hematopoietic cells that were used to isolate the novel protein the lab was investigating. Her time in the lab was a lesson in patience, because it took nearly one and a half years of growing 60 L of cells per week to obtain just enough protein for the analysis. When her supervisor left the laboratory to be part of the biotechnology start-up, Osiris Therapeutics, in Baltimore, Maryland, he invited her to join him as a Senior Research Assistant. Ms. Kahler was later promoted to Research Associate. She participated in the characterization of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and the discovery of novel genes using molecular biology techniques such as PCR, RT-PCR, library screening and Western blotting. When the company received funding from the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to investigate utilizing MSCs as a vaccine delivery device, Ms. Kahler helped out with the isolation and characterization of MSCs from primary sources (e.g., rat, mouse, baboon and human) as well as the required recombinant DNA cloning and retroviral production. While Ms. Kahler enjoyed her research, hard times at Osiris left her searching for a new research position, which she secured with OSI Pharmaceuticals in Farmingdale, NY. As an Associate Scientist, Ms. Kahler is part of OSI’s proprietary cancer program dedicated to discovering small molecule therapeutics. Currently, she is involved in how tyrosine kinases are involved in the signaling pathways that contribute towards cancer. She participates in the “hit to lead” analysis of compounds by performing tyrosine kinase assays, and designing ELISA format capture assays for the high throughput screening of compound-treated cell lysates and tumor lysates. She will soon be venturing into the area of Flow Cytometry, as the lab has just aquired a Beckman Coulter EPICS XL FACS machine. What Ms. Kahler most enjoys about her work is the fact that her tremendous knowledge base of techniques enables her to plan out her experiments in a thoughtful and logical manner. Since being at OSI, she has nurtured an interest in the entire process of drug discovery and development, including the nonscientific related steps related to the legal, financial and ethical aspects of the business. Ms. Kahler’s other interests include a passion for gardening and SCUBA. ### << Previous Next >> [ View All Member Spotlights ] |
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