The major focus of investigators in this area is the use of genetic and molecular approaches to study the underlying mechanisms of cancer and factors that contribute to tumor progression. Examples include identification of cancer susceptibility genes, genetic variation in tumor formation, DNA damage and repair pathways, and carcinogens.

Steve Akman DNA damage, mutagenesis, and genomic instability.

Hannah Caldas The role of Survivin in family members with cancer, and the exploitation of the tumor microenvironment for in situ delivery of anticancer agents to tumors.

Yong Chen Tumor suppressor genes; apoptosis; cell-cycle regulation; prostate cancer.

Scott Cramer Molecular tools to understand and cure prostate cancer and growth and metastasis.

Zheng Cui Lipid signaling in apoptosis and carcinogenesis.

Waldemar Debinski Focus of the identification of molecular markers/targets that are specific to brain tumors.

William Gmeiner My lab is interested in understanding how efficacious anti-cancer drugs cause cancer cell death and in designing new drugs and novel drug delivery strategies.

Steven Kridel Proteases and Cancer: Proteases play pivotal roles in the progression of cancer. Fatty Acid Synthase and prostate cancer: Fatty acid synthase (FAS) has been established as a biomarker and prognostic indicator for prostate cancer.

Karin D. Scarpinato Defects in the mismatch repair pathway and implications for cancer predisposition, progression and chemotherapy.

Mark Miller Molecular pathogenesis and chemoprevention of lung cancer.

Akiva Mintz Utilizing multimodality molecular imaging to personalize biomarker targeted therapies by non-invasively detecting and quantifying the targeted tumor biomarkers/pathways.

Charles Morrow Transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulation of expression of genes associated with antineoplastic drug resistance.

Timothy Pardee My research focus is directed at understanding how Acute Myeloid Leukemia cells resist chemotherapy with the hope of using this information to design clinical trials and improve outcomes for patients with this devastating disease. 

Fred Perrino Molecular mechanisms of mutagenesis during DNA replication in animal cells; use of in vitro model systems.

Suzy Torti Regulation of iron metabolism in normal and transformed cells.

Alan Townsend Mechanisms of resistance to cytotoxic and mutagenic agents; enzymes of glutathione metabolism; chemoprevention of cancer; oxidative stress and antioxidant defenses.

Yuh-Hwa Wang Human fragile sites, DNA rearrangement, oncogenesis, trinucleotide repeat expansion diseases, chromatin structure.

John Wilkinson Apoptosis regulation in the pathogenesis of cancer and other human diseases.