Faculty

Junjie Chen, Ph.D. (Chairman)

Research Interests:

• Molecular mechanisms of DNA damage response and repair pathways in genome maintenance and tumor suppression
• Proteomic analysis of oncogenic and tumor suppressive pathways
• Investigation of gene-gene and gene-drug interactions involved in cancer development and therapy

 

Boyi Gan, Ph.D.

Research Interests: Our lab studies the roles of nutrient sensing and energy metabolism in cancer. Our current efforts aim to study

• The role of energy sensor AMPK and FoxO as well as their associated long non-coding RNAs (IncRNAs) in energy sensing and tumor metabolism
• The crosstalk between cancer metabolism andepigenetics
• The role of glutamate/cystine antiporter SLC7A11in the regulation of nutrient dependency and ferroptosis, a metabolic stress-induced non-apoptotic cell death
  

Khandan Keyomarsi, Ph.D.

Research Insterests:

• The role of cyclin E in breast and salivary tumorigenesis
• Generating transgenic mice to determine the requirement of LMW cyclin E for tumor maintenance and recurrence
• Identifying potential LMW-E/CDK2 substrates on a proteome-wide scale that could serve as targets for treatment of triple negative breast cancer
• Identifying the salivary gland-specific cyclin E-associated kinase that drives cyclin E-induced salivary gland cancer

Lei Li, Ph.D.

Research Interests:

• Molecular mechanisms of DNA damage repair and cell cycle checkpoint mechanisms
• How DNA damage is sensed and transduced into checkpoint signals
• Interaction of chromatin remodeling mechanisms with DNA repair and damage checkpoint pathways
• Repair of DNA interstrand cross-links, as many chemotherapy agents are bifunctional DNA cross-linkers
• Molecular mechanisms of Fanconi anemia

Li Ma, Ph.D.

Research Interests:

The overarching goal of my laboratory is to understand the molecular mechnisms of breast tumor progression and metastasis. Our major interest include regulatory RNAs and deubiquitinating enzymes. We have played a major role in establishing the current models of non-coding RNA regulation of epithelial-mesenchymal transition, metastasis, and therapy resistance. Moreover, we discovered the deubiquitinases for key cancer proteins; some of these deubiquitinases are promising therapeutic targets.  

Pawel Mazur, Ph.D.

Research Interests:

• Pancreatic and Lung Cancer - the leading causes of cancer death
• Adoptive immunotherapy - CAR-T cell-based therapy development
• Biochemistry - novel and "orphan" enzymes substrates discovery
• Genetics - CRISPR/Cas9 animal models for cancer pharmacogenomic

Marvin L Meistrich, Ph.D.

Research Interests:

• The effects of radiation and chemotherapy on male germ cells

Jae-il Park, Ph.D.

Research Interests:

• Studying Wnt pathways in cancer cells, embryonic stem cells, frog embryogenesis, mouse intestine and skin
• Regulation of telomerase in regeneration and disease

Helen Piwnica-Worms, Ph.D.

Research Insterests:

• Identifying and targeting drivers of breast cancer metastasis
• Identifying and targeting vulnerabilities in treatment-refractory primary TNBC
• Defining features that enable indolent breast cancer to advance to aggressive disease
• Generating annotated collections of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of breast cancer for discovery science

Elizabeth L Travis, Ph.D.

Research Interests:

• Normal tissue complications of cancer treatments
• The genetic basis of radiation induced pulmonary fibrosis
• Mechanisms of radiation-induced alveolitis
• Protection and mitigation of radiation injury in normal tissues

Albert C. Koong, M.D., Ph.D., FACR, FASTRO (Radiation Oncology Chairman)

Steven J Frank, M.D.

David R Grosshans, M.D., Ph.D.

Ann H Klopp, M.D., Ph.D.

Sunil Krishnan, M.D., FACP

Steven H Lin, M.D., Ph.D.

Gabriel O. Sawakuchi, Ph.D.

Cullen M. Taniguchi, M.D., Ph.D.

James W. Welsh, M.D.

Wendy Woodward, M.D., Ph.D.