Cancer Biology Faculty
Program Director
Faculty
Professor
Research Interests: Molecular genetics of cell death; genomic “dark matter”; p53 tumor suppressor function; 3D genome organization
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Hematopoietic stem cell and leukemia metabolism; metabolites and the stem cell genome
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Tumor microenvironment, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, tumor immunology
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Lung cancer microenvironment, immunotherapy
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Translational, breast cancer research, bedside to bench approaches, mechanisms of treatment resistance, translational genomics
Professor & Director
Research Interests: Breast cancer; oncogenes; drug resistance; targeted therapies; molecules of interest: ERα, ERBB2 (HER2), CDK4/6, PI3K, FGFR
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Drug resistance mechanism, drug delivery systems, nanoparticles, immunotherapy, tissue engineering
Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms of cell growth proliferation control
Professor
Research Interests: Stem cell biology; niche signaling; chromatin; translational repression
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Signal transduction, Mitochondria function, Cell growth and proliferation, Cancer metabolism
Professor
Research Interests: Endometrial cancer, cancer genetics, model systems, polymerase epsilon
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Metastasis, Breast Cancer, Tumor Immunology, Immunotherapy
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Genetic drivers of childhood cancers, especially Wilms tumor and germ cell tumors, and new strategies for treating them
Professor
Research Interests: Mechanisms of transcriptional regulation and epigenetic control; chromatin remodeling and histone tail modification; sumoylation and ubiquitination; functional interplay between oncoproteins and tumor suppressor proteins; general transcription factors and cofactors
Assistant Professor
Research Interests:Hematopoiesis, Leukemia, Bone Marrow Failure Syndromes, Stem Cell Biology
Professor
Research Interests: Protein kinase cascades; MAP kinases; signal-transduction mechanisms
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Cell migration, survival, stress responses, cancer
Professor
Research Interests: nuclear receptors, hormone driven cancers
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Nanomedicine and image-guided drug delivery for novel diagnostic and therapeutic applications in oncology
Professor
Research Interests: Somatic diversification of antigen receptor genes; repertoire characteristics as biomarkers of immune status and disease; host-pathogen interactions
Professor
Research Interests: Regulation of cell morphogenesis during metastasis; roles of mechanics in cell survival and drug resistance
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Uncover mechanisms that modulate the cellular response to DSBs
Professor
Research Interests: Regulation of metabolism during cell growth and tumorigenesis; integrating signal transduction with metabolic flux; understanding pediatric metabolic diseases
Professor
Research Interests: Role of nuclear transport factors in interphase and mitosis from viral pathogenesis to cell division
Professor
Research Interests: Activatable optical/MRI imaging probes to study tumor metabolism and theranostic nanomedicine for cancer-targeted drug therapy
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Cancer Metabolism, Oxidative stress, Lipid Metabolism
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Melanoma progression and metastasis, cancer metabolism, translational researchBone, omics, spatial transcritpomics, osteoimmunology, digit regeneration, fracture repair, heterotopic ossification, musculoskeletal biology
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Epigenome engineering; Nucleosome production; Drug discovery; Tumor immunology
Professor
Research Interests: Interactions between inflammatory and oncogenic signaling pathways with a focus on glioblastoma (GBM) as our cancer model
Professor
Research Interests: Tumor Immunology, Radiation Immunomodulation, Immunotherapy
Professor
Research Interests: Genetic mechanisms of metastasis, Ocular Oncology, Retinoblastoma, Tumor Immune Microenvironment, Uveal Melanoma
Professor
Research Interests: Translational research in liver cancer, prognostic liver signature, hepatocellular carcinoma molecular subtypes, hepatocellular carcinoma chemoprevention discovery
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Cancer metabolism, nutrient signaling, protein kinases
Professor
Research Interests: Colorectal cancer, tumor microenvironment, regeneration, cancer stem cells
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Fibroblast, Stromal immunology, Mesenchymal progenitor cell, Immunotherapy
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Cytokine receptor; signal transduction; hematopoiesis; structure-function analysis of protein; cancer
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Morphological and cytoskeletal organization of cell signaling in cancer survival and drug resistance
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Cancer biology, CRISPR genome editing, mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), nutrient sensing, signal transduction
Professor
Research Interests: Signal-transduction pathways in development and human disease; genetic control of organ growth and patterning; tumor suppressor genes
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: DNA, RNA, and bisulfite sequence alignment, graph alignment to population of genomes and genotyping, personalized medicine with a focus on cancer diagnosis
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Cancer biology, lung cancer, developmental pathways, hedgehog signaling pathway, Wnt signaling pathway, tumor-stromal interactions, tumor microenvironment
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Functions of cancer-relevant transcription factors and to translate this knowledge into new approaches for detection and treatment of cancer
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Discovering novel (immune) mechanisms that regulate carcinogenesis and tumor progression (e.g., invasion/metastasis, tumor microenvironment, etc.) to answer the most fundamental questions in cancer biology with the final intent of developing novel therapeutic strategies for cancer patients
Associate Professor
Research Interests: The role of hypoxia inducible factors in tumor growth and metastasis
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Mechanisms of genomic instability and chromosomal alterations in cancer
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Tumor metastasis, tumor heterogeneity, therapy resistance, circulation tumor cells, and cellular plasticity
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Cancer metastasis; metastatic stem cells; tumor biology and microenvironment
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Epigenetic mechanisms underlying cancer progression; ETS gene fusions in prostate cancer; genomic rearrangements in cancer; transcriptional regulation in prostate cancer
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Discovery and characterization of novel chemical epigenetic modulators of gene expression with specific anti-cancer activity
Professor
Research Interests: Tumor pathophysiology and MR assessment of prognostic biomarkers/hypoxia and pH
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Nitrogen metabolism, crosstalk between the metabolome and epigenome, metabolic mechanisms of tumor initiation, synthetic lethality, glioma biology, CRISPR/Cas9-based mouse models of cancer
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Genetically engineered mouse models of cancer, chemical and genetic screens for new vulnerabilities in small cell lung cancer and Ewing sarcoma
Professor
Research Interests: Regulation and function of mammalian miRNAs and other noncoding RNAs in normal physiology and disease
Professor
Research Interests: Molecular genetics of human cancer; growth factors and signal transduction in human tumors
Professor
Research Interests: Cancer stem cell biology; melanoma cell proliferation and metastasis; stem cell aging; stem cell self-renewal
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanism of therapy resistance in prostate cancer, combined therapy development, novel biomarker identification, non-coding RNAs’ function in prostate cancer
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Role of the primary cilia in normal development and cancer; functional proteomics in ciliary diseases; ciliary signaling pathways
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Immunogenic Cell Death, Necroptosis Signaling, Anti-tumor Immunity, Immunotherapy
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Mechanisms of tumorigenesis; Regulation and function of cell surface receptors in lung cancer pathogenesis
Professor
Research Interests: Hormone dependent malignancies (prostate and breast); steroid receptor crosstalk; therapeutic drug development; ex vivo model development
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Spatial organization of tumors by combining machine identified phenotypes and existing pathology scoring within the framework established by cancer biology
Professor
Research Interests: Nanomedicine, immunotherapy, ultrasound and radiation guided chemo-immunonotherapy
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Breast cancer, Immunotherapy, Innate Immunity, Translational Immuno-oncology
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Biogenesis of the Golgi apparatus
Professor
Research Interests: Cancer stem cells, cell biology of the cancer genome, mechanisms of cellular immortalization, mouse models of radiation-induced cancer, role of telomeres and telomerase in cancer and aging
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Lysosome biology, mTORC1 signaling, lipid metabolism and sensing, organelle communications
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Benign and malignant urologic diseases, computational and translational biology, cellular anatomy, single cell technology
Professor
Research Interests: Double-stranded DNA tumor viruses (human papillomavirus, human polyomaviruses); circular RNA biogenesis and function; facilitative glucose transporters
Associate Professor
Research Interests: The role of ectopically activated gametogenic programs in supporting tumor cell proliferation and survival
Associate Professor
Research Interests: G-protein signaling during mouse development, energy homeostasis, and feeding behavior
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Virus infectioninduced nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal cancer
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Extrachromosomal DNA in Cancer, Cancer Genomic, Cancer Epigenetics
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: T cells, Immunotherapy
Professor
Research Interests: Statistical analysis and rational design of cellular systems; evolutionary design of the bacterial flagellum
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: T cell differentiation and function, anti-viral immune response and anti-tumor immunity
Associate Professor
Research Interests: NOD-like receptors; innate immune signaling pathways; host-pathogen interaction; intestinal inflammation and cancer
Professor
Research Interests: Signaling and function of immune inhibitory receptors in cancer and immunity; novel immunotherapies targeting cancers and tumor microenvironment.
Professor
Research Interests: Regulation and function of oxygen sensing pathway in diseases including cancer; post-translational modifications of proteins; tumor suppressor signaling and synthetic lethality
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Single cell genomics, tumor microenvironment, cancer metastatsis, cancer immunotherapy, cancer evolution
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Inflammation, innate immunity, mitochondrial signaling pathways and tumor immunology
Professor
Research Interests: Genetic and cellular mechanisms of organ regeneration and dysregulation of these mechanisms in liver cancer
Associate Members
These faculty members do not accept graduate students. They participate in teaching, co-mentoring, exam and dissertation committees, and all other program responsibilities.
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms underlying brain tumors
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Cancer, Genomics, Non-coding Genome, PARPs, DNA Damage Signaling
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Small cell lung cancer, acquired resistance to therapy, intratumoral and intertumoral heterogeneity, tumor lineage plasticity and transdifferentiation, cell cycle control and the RB tumor suppressor
Professor
Research Interests: Transforming growth factor beta signaling
Assistant Professor
Research Interests: Breast cancer, targeted therapy, drug resistance, precision medicine, kinase signaling, oncogenes
Professor
Research Interests: Batten disease, Protein lipidation
Professor
Research Interests: Human cancer gene therapy; signaling defects in urogenital cancers
Professor
Research Interests: Breast cancer, immuno therapy
Professor
Research Interests: Cell death, DAMPs, Autophagy
Associate Professor
Research Interests: Gastric cancer, Biomarker discovery, Genomics, Tumor suppressors, Oncogenes, Disparity
Associate Professor
Professor
Research Interests: Tumor suppressor genes, neurofibromatosis type 1, RAS, MEK/ERK, MAPK, p53, pediatric and adult brain tumors, optic pathway glioma, glioblastoma, malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor