Christian Stehlik, PhD Academic Title: Assistant Professor, Medicine, Rheumatology Division; Feinberg School of Medicine Member of: Signal Transduction in Cancer Email: c-stehlik@northwestern.edu Publications:(39) View Publications Listing Cancer Focused Research:
Dr. Stehlik’s research focuses on elucidating the molecular mechanisms of inflammation, studying primarily macrophages. A main research area is inflammasome activation and pro-inflammatory cytokine release by cytosolic pattern recognition receptors in response to cellular stress and infection, and the molecular mechanisms by which this response is regulated in particular by a protein family of selective inhibitors discovered by Dr. Stehlik. Interleukin-1beta, one of these cytokines produced by tumor associated macrophages (TAMs), is a major factor promoting invasion and metastasis of tumor cells and thus understanding its regulation will have significant ramifications for designing future therapies. Results from the Stehlik laboratory contribute to better understanding activation and regulation of inflammatory signaling pathways and by which dysregulation of these signaling pathways causes human disease, including metastatic cancer.