• 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

Abundant evidence suggests that Wnt signaling is active in both stem cell self-renewal and malignant proliferation of immature tumor cells.  This notion is particularly interesting in light of recent evidence supporting the existence of cancer stem cells.  So-called cancer stem cells are distinct populations of cells found within tumors and possess features typical of adult stem cells such as self-renewal and capacity for differentiation.  Cell surface markers specific to lung cancer stem cells have been identified in murine models, and our group is looking to discover lung cancer stem cells in human tumors.  After performing both in vitro and in vivo (mouse model) cell culture from surgically resected human lung tumors, we are using cell sorting methods to identify human lung cancer stem cells.

Future drug development will seek to identify compounds that are toxic to these cancer stem cells.  We recently proposed to screen for small molecule inhibitors of Wnt-2 transcription through our proprietary Wnt-2 reporter assay.  The results of this screen, we believe, will lead to therapies not only against terminally differentiated cancer cells-the traditional target of such agents-but also cancer stem cell populations, both driven by aberrant Wnt activation. In conjunction with several of our international collaborators, our lab has published a number of important review papers on the topic of cancer stem cells, and we are currently contributing to a book on the subject as well.