Dr. Aafrin Pettiwala from UCSF joins us on OsteoBites to discuss her OutSmarting Osteosarcoma funded work on identifying mechanisms of chemoresistance in metastatic osteosarcoma using molecular barcoding.

The presentation covers how intratumoral heterogeneity drives chemoresistance and metastasis in osteosarcoma by using lineage tracing (CaTCH) and patient-derived xenograft models. She has identified resistant and metastatic cell subpopulations and their molecular vulnerabilities, and further research seeks to uncover new therapeutic targets to improve treatment outcomes for metastatic osteosarcoma patients.

Dr. Pettiwala earned her PhD in Cancer Biology from Institut Curie in Paris, France, where she studied therapeutic resistance and phenotypic plasticity in brain tumors. Her doctoral work focused on uncovering the molecular mechanisms that allow cancer cells to adapt and evade treatment. Currently, Aafrin is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Dr. Alejandro Sweet-Cordero at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Her research centers on understanding chemotherapy resistance in metastatic osteosarcoma, with an emphasis on clonal dynamics, tumor evolution, and lineage tracing using high-throughput barcoding technologies.