Associate Professor

Ph.D., UMDNJ - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Jersey, 1999
216A Life Sciences Building

E-mail:
Office:
Fax:

(631) 632-4104
(631) 632-9797

A hallmark of cancer cells is their ability to evade apoptosis. This attribute allows cancer cells to override normal death signals and cope with harsh environmental conditions, and is a major mechanism for anti-cancer drug resistance and tumor remission. A main task in cancer therapy is to develop specific and effective means to induce cancer cell death circumventing the mutated apoptosis machinery in malignant cells. Our laboratory focuses on the following areas to study the molecular regulation of cancer cell death despite their impaired apoptosis machinery: 1) Using mouse xenograft tumor models that are genetically deficient in apoptosis, we study how necrosis and the subsequent activation of the innate immunity are regulated and contribute to tumor clearance in vivo. 2) Study how different oncoproteins influence cancer cell metabolism that can be specifically targeted to induced cancer cell bioenergetic failure and cell death. 3) Study the regulation of autophagy and its influence on cancer cell survival/death in response to cell mitogenic signaling and cellular stress conditions resulting from tumor development and cancer therapy.

Different modes of cell death can be induced by endoplasmic reticulum stress