Cancer Stem Cells & Programmed Cell Death

Most, if not all, cancerous states reflect inappropriate or incomplete cellular differentiation. Aggressive, therapy resistant cancer cells often resemble stem cells in terms of their transcription profiles and self-renewal capacities. Likewise, unregulated growth, abnormal cell division, and defective cell death pathways are hallmark features of tumors. The goal of research in this area is to define normal stem cell biology and developmental pathways as well as to define genetic, molecular, and biochemical mechanisms that regulate cell proliferation, apoptosis and autophagy and relate these pathways to carcinogenesis.

Specific research in this area includes:

• Defining pathways that govern stem cell biology and embryo development
• DNA damage response in cancer stem cells
• Epigenetic modifications in normal and cancer stem cells
• Epigenetic mechanisms in early embyos and stem cells
• Role of caspases in apoptosis
• Apoptosis and autophagy in normal and disease processes
• Identifying partners of p53 in embryonic stem cells
  

Faculty in this area:

• Michelle Barton
• Shawn Bratton
• Taiping Chen
• Sharon Dent
• Margarida Almeida Santos