Terrence A Barrett, MD Academic Title: Professor, Medicine, Gastroenterology Division; Feinberg School of Medicine Member of: Cancer Prevention,TRIST-Gastrointestinal Cancers Email: tabarrett@northwestern.edu Publications:(49) View Publications Listing Cancer Focused Research:
The Barrett lab investigates mechanisms of epithelial stem cell activation in mouse and human models of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Areas of interest include studying the cooperation between phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) and Wnt in activating beta catenin signaling (He et al Nat Gen 2007). We find that intestinal inflammation increases PI3K-activated beta catenin in intestinal epithelial progenitor and stem cell populations. We propose that this pathway will be a novel target in strategies for chemoprevention (e.g. colitis-induced cancer). In all projects of the lab we strive to have strong translational components by testing lab-generated hypotheses in patient material.