Area of Research

• The primary focus of my research program in Applied Genomics & Cancer Therapeutics (AGCT) is to:

  (1) understand fundamental biological pathways contributing to the molecular carcinogenesis of ovarian cancer, and
  (2) to develop effective therapies that target critical vulnerabilities/dependencies in ovarian cancer.

  In Applied Genomics, we are interested in applying genomic and functional genomic approaches to understand critical driver genes, synthetic lethal targets, and biological pathways contributing to cancer evolution and drug resistance in ovarian cancer. Our current program includes a DoD-funded project focusing on understanding the contribution of germline DNA sequence variations in TP53 and how these variations influence the function of somatic mutations in TP53 in driving cancer progression.

  In Cancer Therapeutics, we are developing new strategies to develop new chemical entities to restore wildtype function of p53 or to inhibit the gain-of-function properties of specific p53 mutants. In addition, we are developing new strategies to induce homologous repair deficiency to enhance synthetic lethality with PARP inhibitors in cancer. Finally, due to alterations in cancer genomes and altered metabolism, cancer cells are highly reliant on protein quality control (PQC) pathway to rid of damaged, misfolded, and mutated proteins. Recent genome-wide synthetic lethal screens in ovarian cancer also identified components of PQC as new vulnerability targets in ovarian cancer. We are developing combination strategies to target PQC in ovarian cancer.