• Lung Cancer
• Wnt Signalling Pathway
• Bronchioalveolar Carcinoma
• Cancer Stem Cells
• Esophageal Cancer
• Mesothelioma
• Expression Profiling
• Lung Cancer System Genetics
• KRas Pathway
• Other Cancers
• Diagnostics Development

The Thoracic Oncology Laboratory also studies bronchioalveolar carcinoma (BAC), a subtype of NSCLC. BACs occur disproportionately in women and non smokers, respond to therapy in a highly nuanced way, and have a more favorable clinical prognosis. In 1999 the World Heath Organization (WHO) restricted the definition of BAC to its classic or "pure" form, a non invasive lung cancer growing along the alveolar walls of the lung. This pure form is relatively rare, comprising perhaps 3-4% of lung cancers, but the vast majority of BACs in clinical practice are mixed tumors exhibiting varying degrees of invasiveness. One of our group's goals is to identify aberrant Wnt signaling in BAC and to develop novel therapies against these anomalies. Preliminary data from work done here show marked overexpression of Wnt family genes in BAC tumor samples compared with in normal tissue. Microarray analyses are being used to measure the expression of Wnt signaling pathway genes in over 100 surgically resected BAC specimens. Several Wnt genes and signaling components are expected to be overexpressed as has been shown in other chemotherapy resistant cancers. Lab members are also working on correlating Wnt expression with disease stage or severity, with patient characteristics such as gender and smoking status, and with clinical endpoints including progression and survival. Furthermore, Wnt antibodies and RNA inhibitors in culture are being tested to determine their ability to kill BAC tumor cells, and novel targeting agents are being developed based on the most responsive compounds. Other interests in the lab involve correlating epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations with histopathologic tumor characteristics in BAC, determining if BAC features predict long term survival in surgical patients, and establishing if mutations in the ERBB2 tyrosine kinase domain are associated with clinical characteristics of BAC.