Marcus Ernst Peter, PhD Academic Title: Professor, Medicine, Hematology Oncology Division; Feinberg School of Medicine Member of: Cancer Cell Biology,TRIST-Not Otherwise Assigned Email: m-peter@northwestern.edu Publications:(135) View Publications Listing Cancer Focused Research:
Dr. Peter have been working in the apoptosis and death receptor field for 19 years. His initial work in 1995 described the first multiprotein complex in apoptosis, the CD95 death-inducing signaling complex (DISC). This was followed by the cloning of the key component of the DISC, caspase-8 in 1996 together with Vishva Dixit's group. Over the years Dr. Peter's group has described the apoptosis signaling pathway of CD95 in detail. After his relocation to the US in 1999 he turned to novel nonapoptotic activities of CD95 which his group recently reported to be highly relevant for cancer cells. The Peter lab recently discovered that the miRNA family let-7 families is a major regulator of tumor progression. Subsequently the group demonstrated that miR-200 is a marker and a powerful regulator of the epithelial-mesenchymal-transition (EMT). The goals of the current research conducted in Dr. Peter's lab are: 1. To study the tumorigenic activities and signaling pathways of the death receptor CD95/Fas and 2. To study the role of miRNAs in tumor progression.