Cancer Cell Signaling
Susann Brady-Kalnay, PhD
Professor, Molecular Biology and Microbiology
Research Focus: Receptor Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase PTPmu in human cancer: specifically glioblastoma (GBM); biomarkers in cancer to develop specific imaging agents and novel therapeutics
Matthias Buck, PhD
Professor, Physiology and Biophysics
Research Focus: Protein-protein interactions in cell signaling of small GTPases, Plexin and Eph receptors
Arnold Caplan, PhD
Professor, Biology
Research Focus: Tissue engineering of mesenchymal tissue, skeletal tissue biology, extracellular matrix; and the aging of the skin
Fabio Cominelli, MD, PhD
Professor, Gastroenterology
Research Focus: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), i.e. Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, and risk for developing colorectal cancer; Mouse models of Crohn's disease
Charis Eng, MD, PhD
Professor, Genetics and Genome Sciences
Research Focus: Genetics, signaling pathways and mouse modeling of inherited PTEN mutations as they predispose to cancer and autism; microbiome as a modifier of disease
Christina Farr, PhD
Assistant Professor, Pathology
Research Focus: Program investigates host-microbe interactions that influence human reproductive health; particularly interested in reproductive mucosal immunology and the vaginal microbiome, and are investigating cervical immunity, inflammation, and the microbiome during HPV-associated cervical neoplasia
Clifford V. Harding, MD, PhD
Professor, Pathology
Research Focus: Cell biology of antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and their regulation by Toll-like receptors
Mark W. Jackson, PhD
Associate Professor, Pathology
Research Focus: Tumor microenvironmental cytokines that regulate cancer stem cells and anti-tumor cell function; immune checkpoint regulators; regulation of Interferon activity
Hung-Ying Kao, PhD
Professor, Biochemistry
Research Focus: Elucidation of aberrant oncogenic signaling, metabolism, and transcription regulation in breast cancer
Ruth Keri, PhD
Professor of Cancer Biology and Molecular Medicine, Lerner College of Medicine
Research focus: Genomic and signaling mechanisms that control mammary gland development, cancer, and therapeutic response
Justin Lathia, PhD
Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Glioblastoma, cell-cell communication, cancer stem cells, sex differences
Fu-Sen Liang, PhD
Assistant Professor, Chemistry
Research Focus: RNA regulation, epigenetics and cell engineering; develop new chemical and biological tools to manipulate non-coding RNA activities, epigenetic modifications and mammalian cell behaviors
Danny Manor, PhD
Professor, Nutrition and Pharmacology
Research Focus: Regulation of proliferative signaling by small GTPases and GEFs in normal cells and in cancer
Shigemi Matsuyama, PhD
Associate Professor, Medicine
Research Focus: Role of bcl2, Bax and Ku70 in cell survival and cell death
Monica M. Montano, PhD
Associate Professor, Pharmacology
Research Focus: Identification of factors in breast and prostate cancer critical in the transition to hormone-independence, resistance to cancer therapeutics, and ability to metastasize
Parameswaran Ramakrishnan, PhD
Associate Professor, Pathology and Biochemistry
Research Focus: Discovery of novel mechanisms and therapeutic targets for cancer; Immunometabolism and acute myeloid Leukemia; Chronic inflammation and colorectal cancer
Ofer Reizes, PhD
Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Breast cancer, gynecologic cancer, DNA damage response, cancer stem cells, microbiome, HIPEC
William P. Schiemann, PhD
Vice Dean for Research & Innovation, School of Medicine; Professor, Biochemistry; Goodman-Blum Professor in Cancer Research
Research Focus: Molecular mechanisms of breast cancer metastasis, metastatic dormancy, and metastatic relapse
Khalid Sossey-Alaoui, PhD
Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Molecular mechanisms that regulate the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and cancer stem cell phenotypes and chemoresistance. Proteins of interest include: WAVE2 and WAVE3 in progression and metastasis: YB1 in the invasion-metastasis; Kindlin-2 as a regulator of the oncogenic TGF-β signaling and cancer cell senescence
George R. Stark, PhD
Professor Emeritus, Cancer Biology
Research Focus: Interferons; JAK/STAT signaling; EGFR; NFkB; drug resistance; DNA repair; lung, breast, prostate, brain cancer
Bingcheng Wang, PhD
Professor, Cancer Biology
Research Focus: Understanding mechanisms driving 1) tumor immune evasion and 2) distal metastasis of tumor stem cells; developing therapeutic agents that inhibit both processes
Rui Wang, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery
Research Focus: How the microenvironment communicates with cancer cells to mediate cancer cell growth and chemoresistance in colorectal and pancreatic cancers using primary cell culture to determine the key signaling pathways that represent new targets for cancer therapy
Aaron Weinberg, DMD, PhD
Professor, Biological Sciences
Research Focus: Fusobacterium in human colon cancer
Jordan Winter, MD
Associate Professor, Surgery
Research Focus: Pancreatic cancer cell survival in the harsh tumor microenvironment. Exploiting cancer cell metabolism as therapy for pancreatic cancer, specifically isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 and mitochondrial biology.
Sichun Yang, PhD
Associate Professor, Department of Nutrition and Center for Proteomics
Research focus: Biophysics and drug discovery of estrogen receptor
Vivien Yee, PhD
Associate Professor, Biochemistry
Research Focus: Biomedically important proteins and enzymes with interesting mechanistic questions with a focus on proteins involved in drug metabolism, neurodegenerative disorders, antiviral defense, or are model systems for metabolic enzymes
Jennifer Yu, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Glioblastoma cancer stem cells, DNA repair, radiotherapy
Saba Valadkhan, PhD
Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology and Microbiology
Research Focus: Non-coding RNAs in disease, and in metastasis progression
Lily Wang, PhD
Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Epigenetic and metabolic regulation of anti-tumor immunity; development of effective therapeutics for cancer immunotherapy; mechanisms of resistance following chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell-based therapies, and investigating novel immune signatures governing clinical outcomes for myeloid leukemia, melanoma, breast cancer, and lung cancer
Yi Zhang, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biochemistry
Research Focus: Protein post-translational modifications and their mechanism, regulation, function, and crosstalk in controlling epigenetic reader proteins and proteins regulating autophagy; early drug discovery stages, including target validation, assay development, screening, and optimization
Youwei Zhang, PhD
Associate Professor, Pharmacology
Research Focus: Chk1, 53BP1 regulation of DSB repair and chromosome stability
Cancer Computational or Population Biology
Gregory Cooper, MD
Professor, Gastroenterology
Research Focus: Screening, early detection, and surveillance for gastrointestinal cancers including the use of population-based datasets and interventions in high-risk populations
Seth Corey, MD, MPH
Staff, Pediatrics and Cancer Biology
Research Focus: Leukemia and cancer predisposition syndromes to determine the molecular basis of neoplasia and cancer cell evolution; Modeling Ewing sarcoma origins and metastases in transgenic zebrafish or patient-derived xenografts
Hao Harry Feng, PhD
Assistant Professor, Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
Research Focus: develops novel statistical methods for high-throughput-omics data in cancer and applies statistical tools to decipher the hidden signals from large dataset in cancer
Thomas LaFramboise, PhD
Professor, Medicine
Research Focus: Pediatric hematology-oncology; tumor immunology and immune-mediated cancer therapy
Stephanie Schmit, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Genetic and molecular epidemiology of colorectal cancer; colorectal cancer disparities in admixed and ancestrally diverse populations
Fredrick Schumacher, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor, Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
Research Focus: Prostate cancer; deciphering the inherited genetic architecture of complex traits, assessing the shared genetic etiology of complex phenotypes to elucidate the underlying biology, and ascertaining the clinical impact of inherited genetics
Jacob Scott, MD
Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Evolution of pathogens (bacteria and viruses causing disease) and cancer using a combination of experimental evolution and mathematical/computational methods
Erika Trapl, PhD
Associate Professor, Population and Quantitative Health Sciences
Research Focus: Potential impact of regulating flavor in tobacco products on youth and young use; community-partnered approaches to improve uptake of preventive practices (smoking cessation, cancer screening) to reduce cancer health disparities
Experimental Therapeutics
Zachary Burke, MD
Research Focus: Orthopedic oncology and translational sarcoma research; sarcoma evolution and treatment resistance, sarcoma in vitro and in vivo modeling and target discovery, novel therapeutics for biofilm and orthopedic implant infection
Abhishek Chakraborty, PhD
Assistant Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Studying the importance of oxygen-dependent enzymes in cancer biology. Studying epigenetics, tumor metabolism, cellular differentiation pathways in cell-based animal models
Amar Desai, PhD
Assistant Professor, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center
Research Focus: Identifying mechanisms driving the regenerative capacity of hematopoietic stem cells during bone marrow transplantation in order to develop novel therapeutics capable of reducing morbidity, mortality, and expense of human bone marrow transplants
Mohamed Draz, PhD
Assistant Professor, School of Medicine
Research Focus: Relationship between microbial infections and cancer development and progression; micro and nano scaled engineering for biomarkers testing, self-protection, prevention, and treatment
Berkley Gryder, PhD
Assistant Professor, Genetics and Genome Sciences
Research Focus: 3D chromatin folding, aberrant gene regulation in cancer, and the development of epigenetic therapeutics
Sanjay Gupta, PhD, MS
Professor of Urology, Pharmacology, Pathology & Nutrition
Research Focus: Biomarkers for detection and prognosis of cancer; develop prediction/prognosis models of human cancer using AI and machine learning approaches; identify novel targets to monitor the efficacy of cancer therapeutics; vaccine construction; repurposing of clinically approved drugs and enhancing their efficacy by precise delivery to the target sites
Chao-Pin Hsiao, PhD, RN
Assistant Professor, Nursing
Research Focus: Symptom Science; Mitochondrial bioenergetic mechanism of cancer-related fatigue using molecular-genetic approaches in cancer patients receiving treatments; Symptom Management
Alex Huang, MD, PhD
Professor, Medicine
Research Focus: Pediatric hematology-oncology; tumor immunology and immune-mediated cancer therapy
Babal K. Jha, PhD
Associate Professor, Immunotherapy and Precision Immuno-Oncology
Research Focus: Mechanisms of neoplastic evolution; discovery of cancer cells specific targetable vulnerabilities; epigenetic dysfunction in cancer cells; development of small molecule drugs that reprogram cancer cells to differentiate & terminate and alter anticancer immune responses
Vijay Krishna, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Focus: Nanotechnology-based approaches for cancer prevention, and non-invasive treatment with photonic nanomaterials
John Letterio, MD
Professor, Pediatrics
Research Focus: Adolescent and young adult cancers; drug discovery and preclinical development; targeting CDK5 and TGF-beta to alter PD-L1 and PD-1 expression
Jaroslaw Maciejewski, MD, PhD
Professor, Translational Hematology and Oncology Research
Research Focus: Molecular disease mechanisms of bone marrow failure syndromes, including myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS)
Christine McDonald, PhD
Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Development of immunoadjuvants targeting the innate immune response as single agents or as combinatorial treatments to improve response to other immunotherapies, with an emphasis on locally applied cancer therapeutics to reduce adverse events
Rebecca Obeng, MD, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor, Department of Pathology
Research Focus: Interplay between immune niches and CD8 T cell differentiation and function in the tumor microenvironment
Pushpa Pandiyan, PhD
Associate Professor, School of Dental Medicine
Research Focus: Onco-immunology focusing on differentiation and function of immunosuppressive cells in oral squamous cell carcinoma; Examining MDSC and FOXP3+ regulatory T cells and the fungal mechanisms regulating tumor immune micro environment
Reshmi Parameswaran, PhD, MS
Assistant Professor, Medicine
Research Focus: Developing new cancer immunotherapy strategies including CAR-T, CAR-NK, Adoptive NKcell therapy and antibody therapy for liquid and solid cancers
John Pink, PhD
Assistant Professor, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center
Research Focus: Novel drug development for cancer therapy, focusing on inhibitors of DNA repair and metabolism, cancer clinical trial correlative studies
Yogen Saunthararajah, MD
Professor, Medicine
Research Focus: Molecular targets for p53-independent, non-cytotoxic cancer therapy
Corey Speers, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Radiation Oncology
Research Focus: Breast cancer; gene expression-based signatures to predict patients that need less treatment versus treatment intensification; targeted therapies including CDK 4/6-inhibitors, PARP-inhibitors, mitotic regulatory kinases, and estrogen and androgen receptor antagonists as agents for radiation therapy sensitization; mechanisms of treatment resistance that include modulation of breast tumor initiating cells
Luis Tollinche, MD, MPH
Professor, Anesthesiology
Research Focus: Effects of anesthetics on adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with cancer, including length of hospital stay and adverse events related to oncological treatment
Horst von Recum, PhD
Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Focus: Use of polymer drug delivery systems which can be reloaded after implantation; exploring the use of this platform for recurrent or chemoresistant tumors
David Wald, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Pathology
Research Focus: Cancer cell therapy, Acute myeloid leukemia (AML), cancer model systems and drug development, primary cell culture to determine the key signaling pathways that represent new targets for cancer therapy
Zhenghe (John) Wang, PhD
Professor, Genetics and Genome Sciences
Research Focus: Novel therapeutic approaches to target PIK3CA-mutant colorectal cancers
Mei Zhang, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Focus: Nanomedicine and cancer immunotherapy. Biomolecules modulating tumor microenvironment via priming innate immunity. Goal is to develop enhanced immunotherapy for solid tumor cancers with metastatic disease
Jianjun Zhao, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: Antibody or nanobody development for multiple myeloma and B cell lymphoma; prevention therapy for chemo- or radio- therapy related reno-, cardio-, and oto-toxicities; antisense oligo drug development, antibody drug conjugation, DNA damage related synthetical lethal; antibody maturation in germinal center B cells; tumor or chemo related microenvironment changes
Cancer Genetics
J. Mark Brown, PhD
Assistant Professor, Molecular Medicine
Research Focus: lipid metabolism; lipoprotein metabolism; microenvironment; high fat diet-induced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)
Kaixiang Cao, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biochemistry
Understanding mechanisms underlying cell fate transition using genetic, genomic, and biochemical approaches
Amitabh Chak, MD
Professor, Gastroenterology
Research Focus: Genetics of Familial Barrett's Esophagus
Stephen Fink, PhD
Assistant Professor, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center
Research Focus: Colon cancer biomarker discovery; targeting 15-PGDH in colorectal cancer prognosis, prediction, prevention, and treatment
Berkley Gryder, PhD
Assistant Professor, Genetics and Genome Sciences
Research Focus: 3D chromatin folding, aberrant gene regulation in cancer, and the development of epigenetic therapeutics
Kishore Guda, DVM, PhD
Associate Professor, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center
Research Focus: Translational oncology research focusing on gastrointestinal (GI) malignancies with an overarching goal of impacting clinical practice via developing evidence-based biomarkers and targeted therapies for aggressive GI cancers
Sanford Markowitz, MD, PhD
Professor, Medicine
Research Focus: GI SPORE; Colon cancer genetics; 15-PGDH
Christopher McFarland, PhD
Assistant Professor, Genetics and Genome Sciences
Research Focus: Evolutionary processes combining theoretical modeling, data analysis, and new experimental techniques of cancer
Brian P. Rubin, MD, PhD
Professor, Anatomic Pathology
Research Focus: Genetics and biology of sarcomas with particular interest in identification and validation of therapeutic biomarkers and targets
Derek Taylor, PhD
Professor, Pharmacology & Biochemistry
Research Focus: Induction of cancer cell death by telomerase-mediated DNA misincorporation
Imaging
James Basilion, PhD
Professor, Radiology and Biomedical Engineering
Research Focus: Program Leader Cancer Imaging; Molecular imaging and development of novel imaging probes and paradigms to image cancers non-invasively and in real-time
Agata A. Exner, PhD
Professor, Radiology
Research Focus: Nanobubble ultrasound contrast agents for cancer imaging and therapy; molecular detection of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) for detection and biopsy guidance in prostate cancer, imaging vascular permeability, local drug therapy with injectable polymer implants
Chris A. Flask, PhD
Associate Professor, Radiology
Research Focus: Development of new preclinical and clinical imaging acquisition and analysis techniques to assess brain, breast, lung, and kidney cancers in vivo; development of novel optical and radionuclide imaging techniques to assess the delivery and efficacy of gene editing strategies
Mark A. Griswold, PhD
Professor, Radiology
Research Focus: Magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF); Imaging hardware design and optimization
Zheng-Rong Lu, PhD
Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Focus: Design and development of novel contrast agents MRI; imaging tumor microenvironment
Satish Viswanath, PhD
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Research Focus: Novel artificial intelligence (AI) methods and applications including radiomics, pathomics, computational pathology, machine/deep learning which leverage medical imaging for disease characterization, treatment response, predictive modeling, and patient prognosis
Chris Weight, MD, PhD
Center Director Urologic Oncology
Research Focus: Computer vision interpretation of medical images for genitourinary malignancies