Multidisciplinary research to beat cancer

How do cells sense metabolites to drive their growth and proliferation?  We seek to study metabolites not only as nutrients but as cellular instruction signals that dictate cell biology. 

The Gill lab studies the molecular and metabolic pathways that influence melanoma progression and metastasis.

Under the guidance of director Dr. Daolin Tang, the research group focuses on basic, translational and clinical application research on damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) signaling pathways. Inflammation is a fundamental response to infection and injury in all multicellular organisms. The danger hypothesis states that endogenous molecules (protein and non-protein) released during cell death or tissue damage can trigger inflammation in the absence of infection, collectively referred to as DAMPs. We are particularly interested in elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying stress-induced cellular defense and cell death signaling in normal and cancer cells, and how release of DAMPs modulates immune responses in disease.

The Wu Laboratory mainly focuses on using human primary nasal and oral epithelium culture to gain novel insights in virus-host interactions.

The Camacho Lab focuses on understanding key genetic events that lead to cancer in an effort to identify novel targets that will help improve existing therapies

The research of the Huang Laboratory focuses on understanding the function of fibroblast progenitor cells and fibroblasts in regulating the immune system.

The mission of the Najafov Lab is to understand the role of cell death in physiology and disease. Our research is focused on necroptosis and how it can be targeted to develop novel strategies for treating cancer.

Our goal is to better understand the mechanisms that maintain adult tissues and how cancer cells hijack these mechanisms to enable the formation of tumors.

Using novel multi-omics approaches and model systems to treat pancreatic cancer