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Cancer Biology (CBIO) Faculty

  • Jessica Chen, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Graduate student education & on-line programs; previous research focused on beta-adrenergic signaling in cardiovascular disease

  • Ridhdhi Desai, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: cancer and cell biology; disease modeling; exocrine/endocrine crosstalk

  • Alexej Dick, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Computational-aided drug design, biophysics of protein interactions, protein design, structural biology.

  • Alessandro Fatatis, MD, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Pharmacology & Physiology
    Research Interests: Cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating metastatic potential of solid tumors, studies in vitro and in animal models of neoplastic disease

  • Edward Hartsough, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Pharmacology & Physiology
    Research Interests: Mechanisms contributing to metastatic progression and susceptibility of cancers to targeted inhibitors

  • Jennifer Hope, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Microbiology & Immunology
    Research Interests: Immune responses to cancer, chronic virus infection; T cell differentiation; T cell development

  • Eishi Noguchi, PhD

    Professor; Director, Graduate Program in Molecular & Cellular Biology & Genetics
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Genome maintenance mechanisms relevant to the biology of cancer and aging, including DNA replication, DNA repair, DNA damage response and cell cycle checkpoints; investigating the mechanisms required for preservation of genomic integrity in response to environmental factors and toxins, including alcohol and aldehydes

  • Mauricio Reginato, PhD

    Professor and Chair; Director, Graduate Program in Cancer Biology
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Molecular mechanisms regulating breast cancer growth and metastasis and understanding interplay between signaling and metabolic pathways to identify novel cancer therapies.

  • Gabriele Romano, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Pharmacology & Physiology
    Research Interests: Cancer drug resistance; tumor suppressor genes; immune evasion; chemokine signaling; computational biology; functional genomics; HIV and cancer; nanoparticle-mediated drug delivery

  • Srinivas Somarowthu, PhD

    Associate Professor; Director, Biochemistry of Health and Disease Program
    Department: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
    Research Interests: Long non-coding RNAs; non-coding RNAs in viral genomes; RNA-protein complexes; molecular modeling and bioinformatics

 
Faculty in the Department of Biology at Drexel University
 

Nianli Sang, PhD

Research Interests: Regulation of cell metabolism and its relevance in major human diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disorders and diabetes.


 
Adjunct Faculty at the Wistar Institute
 

Dario Altieri, MD *

Research Interests: The mechanisms that underlie how tumor cells survive and proliferate in cancer, in particular how tumor cells evade the normal processes that cause cells with genetic faults to self-destruct.

Alessandro Gardini, PhD

Research Interests: The epigenetic control of transcription during cell differentiation and oncogenesis.

Paul Lieberman, PhD

Research Interests: How certain viruses, including Epstein-Barr virus and Kaposi's sarcoma–associated herpesvirus, establish a long-term latent infection that can lead to cancer.

Luis Montaner, DVM, DPhil *

Research Interests: Mechanisms of disease in HIV-1 infection, and explores new ways to boost the natural function of the immune system in order to combat infection or viral-associated disease.

Maureen Murphy, PhD

Research Interests: The most frequently mutated gene in human cancer, the tumor suppressor protein p53, especially how genetic polymorphisms in the p53 tumor suppressor gene that are more common in African Americans affect the ability of this protein to induce apoptosis and growth arrest, and hence combat tumor development.

Yulia Nefedova, MD, PhD *

Research Interests: Her research focuses on understanding molecular mechanisms by which the bone marrow microenvironment promotes tumor survival and progression.

Joseph M. Salvino, PhD

Research Interests: Medicinal chemistry, lead optimization and drug development, organic synthesis, design and synthesis of chemical biology tools to assist in mechanistic studies.

Jessie Villanueva, PhD

Research Interests: Our lab studies the molecular pathways that become deregulated in melanoma aiming at identifying suitable targets for therapy, particularly for tumors with limited treatment options, such as those driven by oncogenic NRAS. Our research goals are to dissect the mechanisms mediating drug resistance and identifying new targets or vulnerabilities that can be therapeutically exploited to combat melanoma drug resistance.


 
Adjunct Faculty at Fox Chase Cancer Center
 

Sanjeevani Arora, PhD

Research Interests: My laboratory seeks to understand how innate differences in DNA replication and/or repair impact two critical areas in precision oncology: (1) what underlies an individual’s cancer risk, and (2) how an individual will respond to cancer treatment.

Alfonso Bellacosa, MD, PhD *

Research Interests: DNA repair of mismatched bases and the cellular response to DNA damage. Identification of early genetic alterations in tumorigenesis.

Lu Chen, PhD

Research Interests: Lu Chen lab uses CRISPR engineering, live cell imaging, and classic biochemical approaches to delineate the molecular and cellular mechanisms by which RNA and RNA-protein complexes contribute to epigenetics, chromatin organization, and genome maintenance. We are translating our basic science findings into new therapeutic strategies aiming to solve cancers and other aging-related degenerative diseases.

Jonathan Chernoff, MD, PhD *

Research Interests: Signal transduction by small G proteins and their effectors and the role of these proteins in regulating cytoskeletal structure, tumor invasion, and metastasis; regulation of insulin signaling.

Denise Connolly, PhD

Research Interests: Goal of our research is to discover ways to improve the treatment of epithelial ovarian cancer.

Edna Cukierman, PhD

Research Interests: Tumor microenvironment; we study cancer-associated fibroblasts and self-derived extracellular matrices to understand their biochemical and mechanical effects on tumorigenesis and stromal activation.

Roland Dunbrack, PhD

Research Interests: Computational structural biology, including homology modeling, fold recognition, molecular dynamics simulations, statistical analysis of the PDB, and bioinformatics.

Cihangir Duy, PhD, MS

Research Interests: Identifying drug survival mechanisms for novel therapeutic strategies to benefit patients. Developing organoid models for precision medicine. Determining pathways and mechanisms regulating chromatin modifiers and enhancer-promoter interactions in hematopoietic cells. Systems biology approaches to determine epigenetic plasticity and epigenome regulation.

Erica Golemis, PhD

Research Interests: Integration of systems biology approaches with high throughput screening and targeted pathway analysis to improve the efficacy of preclinical and clinical cancer therapies.

Neil Johnson, PhD

Research Interests: The Johnson laboratory studies mechanisms of DNA damage detection, repair, and signaling that occur in BRCA1 mutation-containing organisms and cancers. We use a range of approaches, including cell biology, mouse genetics, and therapy resistance modeling, to understand basic biological processes and their implications for tumorigenesis and chemotherapy sensitivity.

Warren D. Kruger, PhD

Research Interests: Molecular chaperone correction of missense mutations; genetic defects of methionine metabolic enzymes and human disease.

Lori Rink, PhD

Research Interests: Mechanisms of drug resistance in gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

Johnathan Whetstine, PhD

Research Interests: Epigenetic Mechanisms Driving Copy Gain, Amplifications and Drug Resistance.

Amy Whitaker, PhD

Research Interests: Projects in the Whitaker lab aim to elucidate the molecular mechanisms coupling two key biological responses to oxidative DNA damage within G-quadruplex forming sequences. Specifically, base excision repair (BER) and the epigenic-like transcriptional regulation of key tumor suppressors and oncogenes. The long-term goal is to identify molecular targets that can be exploited to improve cancer therapies.


* Physician's practice is independent of Drexel Medicine and Drexel University.

 

A Cancer Biology program graduate student working in the lab at Drexel University College of Medicine.