Northwestern College student conducts summer research at MD Anderson Cancer Center

Dane Schoenborn, a senior biology–health professions major at Northwestern College from Mahnomen, Minnesota, has spent much of his summer conducting research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He participated in the highly competitive 10-week Summer Program in Cancer Research, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute.
Schoenborn’s research has focused on understanding how oocytes (egg cells) develop and what cellular factors determine whether they’re healthy. Chromosomal defects in oocytes are a major cause of birth defects, miscarriages and infertility. So Schoenborn studied how chromosomal dynamics are regulated to ensure oocyte quality.
The lab in which Schoenborn is working studies the RAS signaling pathway, a cellular communication system that is a key regulator of animal development. In the lab’s previous work, researchers found that if this pathway remains active at the wrong time during oocyte development, it leads to developmental defects.
Schoenborn has been using a microscopic worm to try to understand how PLK-1, a protein target of RAS pathway signaling, regulates oocyte development. The Northwestern student has found that depleting PLK-1 in the worm leads to changes in proteins that allow chromosomes to undergo rearrangements throughout oocyte development. “By gaining a deeper understanding of chromosomal structures and the proteins involved in their organization, this research may help explain why some pregnancies fail,” says Schoenborn. “Ultimately, these insights could lead to new strategies for improving reproductive health.
“I’ve enjoyed the excitement of uncovering the unknown,” he says. “If this project yields the results we believe it will, then with the help of my colleagues, I will have uncovered information about a biological process no one else has described before. That is incredibly exciting to me and easily one of the most rewarding aspects of working at MD Anderson.”
Schoenborn, a linebacker on Northwestern’s football team who was selected as a 2024 NAIA Scholar-Athlete, plans to pursue a doctorate in cell biology, biochemistry or cancer biology with the goal of becoming a cancer researcher.