Damon Runyon News

The human gut is home to trillions of microorganisms, collectively called the microbiota, which affect health and disease. For example, in patients receiving hematopoietic stem cell transplantation as treatment for leukemias, lymphomas and other blood cancers, disruptions in the microbiota have been linked to disease relapse, infections and reduced survival. To address these treatment complications, Drs.

The human gut is home to trillions of microorganisms, collectively called the microbiota, which affect health and disease. For example, in patients receiving hematopoietic stem cell transplantation as treatment for leukemias, lymphomas and other blood cancers, disruptions in the microbiota have been linked to disease relapse, infections and reduced survival. To address these treatment complications, Drs.

Cancer immunotherapy mobilizes the body's own sophisticated defenses to target and kill cancer cells. Despite its enormous promise, immunotherapy is only effective in a subset of cancers in a small group of patients. Dr. Han is investigating the role of the immune system's T cells in human colorectal cancer, which has limited treatment success with immunotherapy.

Dr. Vo focuses on T cell-based cancer immunotherapy, such as chimeric antigen receptor “CAR” T cells, as a transformative therapeutic approach. While recent studies have demonstrated the efficacy of CAR-T cell therapy in treating certain leukemias and lymphomas, further advancements are required to broaden its therapeutic utility. Pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) have the capacity to generate any cell type of the body and represent a potentially inexhaustible source of clinically useful cells.

Dr. Xie [The Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Fellow] focuses on uncovering mutation-independent mechanisms of drug resistance in cancer. The prevalence of drug resistance in tumors – and collateral damage to healthy tissues – have been major roadblocks to improving the efficacy of chemotherapy. While current research has been focused on identifying mutations that confer cancer drug resistance, an emerging paradigm is that mutation-independent changes in the chromatin or proteins could be a hidden force that promotes the development of drug resistance.

Dr. Riscal aims to identify to identify novel therapeutic strategies that would ultimately benefit most “Clear cell renal cell carcinoma” (ccRCC) patients. Because of obesity and an aging population, the incidence of ccRCC has steadily risen over the last decade. If ccRCC is detected early and can be surgically resected, five-year survival rates are relatively favorable. However, metastatic disease has a catastrophic five-year survival rate of less than 10%. At that stage, treatments are sometimes ineffective due to the established resistance of ccRCC to conventional therapies. Dr.

Dr. Ji [HHMI Fellow] studies the function of a critical ATPase protein called p97 in an important cellular process called protein degradation, which regulates proteins and can promote cancer cell proliferation and survival. His goal is to understand the molecular mechanism of how p97 functions. A better understanding of p97 could ultimately benefit the development of anti-cancer drugs based on p97 inhibition.

Dr. Guo focuses on the Piezo channel, a molecular machine on the cell membrane that converts mechanical stimuli on the outside of the cell into electric signals inside the cell. Piezo channels are important in human cells to sense touch, maintain balance, and regulate blood pressure. High expression of Piezo channels can promote various types of cancer, including breast and gastric. By studying its atomic structure, she aims to determine the mechanism of how the Piezo channel is regulated, which may provide the framework for novel anti-cancer therapies.

Dr. Kulalert focuses on how the skin is influenced by microbes. The skin is enriched with immune cells and highly innervated; nevertheless, the roles of neuroimmune crosstalk in cancer development and treatment remain largely unexplored. Sensory perception, especially pain sensation, is associated with cancer-related complications as well as chemotherapy.

Dr. Lapointe examines how the synthesis of proteins (translation) is controlled, as dysregulated translation is a ubiquitous feature of cancer. He is focused on a key challenge: how regulation that originates at the end of a messenger RNA (mRNA, a genetic molecule that encodes a protein) impacts the start of translation, which occurs near the beginning of the mRNA. His goal is to reveal and analyze dynamic pathways that underlie this fundamental mechanism to control gene expression.