Primary Appointment

I am interested in the molecular and cellular biology ofgastrointestinal tumors. These studies involve four primary areas ofresearch: 1) to understand microenvironmental and age related effects ofthe colon stromal on CRC; 2) to examine the role of the stromalcell eicosanoid pathway and inflammatory pathway effects on CRC; 3) toexamine the role of mesenchymal and epithelial stem cells in thedevelopment of CRC and 4) to develop mechanism based approaches of applyingnanotechnology to cancer prevention. These studies involve isolating andcharacterizing cells from colon tumors as well as colon liver metastases. Thesecells will be used in co-culture experiments with colon tumor cells toexamine the their ability to inhibit or promote the growth of tumor cellsin vitro or in vivo. Further molecular and eicosanoid profiling will beperformed co-cultured cells to dissect out the critical changes that occurwhen these cells interact during tumor formation. In the future, As apart of the age related effects of stromal cells on CRC, in the process ofisolating normal colon and pancreatic mesenchymal and epithelial cellsfrom various age wt or APCmin mice. These mesenchymal cells will be usedin co-culture experiments with colon tumor cells to examine the effect ofage or inflammatory bioactive lipids on the ability of mesenchymal cellsto inhibit or promote the growth  of tumor cells in vitro or in vivo.

Institutional Committee Activities

Last updated: 12/5/2012