Hormone Action and Signal Transduction in Cancer

Program Leader: Hamid Band, MD, PhD
Program Co-Leader: Debabrata Chakravarti, PhD

The Hormone Action and Signal Transduction (HAST) in Cancer Program of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center (RHLCCC) is a basic research program that includes both basic and clinical investigators who are exploring the mechanisms by which normal and transformed cells respond to hormones and growth factors. The program leader is Hamid Band, MD, PhD, a highly regarded basic signal transduction biologist with a focus on cancer cell signaling and targeted therapeutics. The program co-leader is Debabrata (Debu) Chakravarti, Ph.D, an expert in transcriptional regulation and nuclear hormone signaling who focuses on the mechanisms of physiological control of nuclear hormone receptor signaling through co-regulators and chromatin modifications and abnormalities of these mechanisms in cancer. This is an interdepartmental program composed of 19 faculty from 8 departments and 2 schools. Between January 2001 and September 2006 there have been 359 cancer-relevant publications from the current program members. Fifty-two (14%) of these publications represent intra-programmatic collaborations and 83 (23%) represent inter-programmatic collaborations. Total current cancer-relevant peer-reviewed funding is $4,551,322 (direct) with $1,896,639 (direct) from NCI and $2,654,683 (direct) from other peer-reviewed sources. The program goals are focused on how hormones and growth regulatory factors interact with their cognate receptors, mediate downstream signal transduction events resulting in changes to the cell physiology, and how these events are altered in a cancer cell. This is achieved by a coordinated and focused effort of the program investigators toward a unified understanding of the context in which normal cells become neoplastic and the mechanisms that perpetuate the aberrant cell phenotype over time. A basic understanding of the mechanism of abnormal cancer cell signaling can be utilized to specifically target tumors for therapy and enhance our knowledge of the efficacy or resistance to anticancer therapeutics as well as development of new therapeutics. The previous critique of this program noted excellent to outstanding merit, but stressed a need for some more cancer relevant research. Evolution of cancer-related research in member laboratories, recruitment of new faculty including the current program co-leaders, the inclusion of cancer investigators from other basic science and clinical programs, and the elimination of scientists not directly engaged in cancer research has now dramatically strengthened the cancer focus of this program while continuing and even surpassing its already established strengths in basic science. Program members are highly interactive and collaborative, both intra- and inter-programmatically, on a spectrum of projects including translational initiatives.

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