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Biosketch
In September 2016, I joined the University of Kentucky Department of Toxicology and Cancer Biology, where my laboratory integrates studies of epigenetic programs, stem cell biology, and precision cancer medicine. I trained at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute with Dr. Charles Roberts studying cancer epigenetics, at Tufts University with Dr. Charlotte Kuperwasser studying cellular hierarchies within tumors, and at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Genetics with Dr. Carla Kim studying lung cancer subtypes and epigenetic therapies. During my post-doctoral work, I found a mechanism of synergy between EZH2 inhibitors and the chemotherapy etoposide (Nature 2015) and characterized the tumor propagating cells in the Lkb1/Pten murine squamous lung cancer model (Cancer Cell 2014). Most recently, I demonstrated that EZH2 inhibition up-regulates a squamous transcriptional program (Nature Communications 2017), and that distinct lung stem cells can be transformed and take on squamous characteristics. These findings inspired the current funded studies in my laboratory, which include testing inhibitors of epigenetic readers and writers in subtype specific lung cancers, understanding the epigenetic states that are most permissive for lung cancer transformation, and combining immunotherapies and epigenetic therapies for the treatment of lung cancer
Affiliation
- Assistant Professor
Toxicology and Cancer Biology
University of Kentucky College of Medicine
Lexington, Kentucky
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