Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona
Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Biodesign Institute
Identifying new therapeutic targets to treat highly aggressive breast cancers.
Triple-negative breast cancers (TNBC) are those that lack expression of estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), and HER2. Because they lack an established target, TNBC is often difficult to treat. Dr. LaBaer is studying a tumor suppressor gene and the protein it encodes, called p53. Mutations in p53 are found in 80 percent of TNBC, making p53 a potential target for treating this aggressive subtype of breast cancer. However, researchers have struggled to find ways to target p53-mutated cancers. Dr. LaBaer’s work is aimed at identifying alternative targets for p53-mutant tumor cells. These may be other genes that work with p53 or other proteins that are activated by mutant p53. His findings could lead to the development of new combination approaches and personalized therapy for patients with TNBC.
Using genome-editing technologies coupled to bioinformatic and machine learning analysis, Dr. LaBaer discovered specific mutations that can initiate metastasis when p53 is mutated. He and his team have identified key genes and mutations increase cancer-like behavior of cells and tumor formation in laboratory models. Dr. LaBaer has found that mutations in several of these genes contribute to the formation of tumors in breast cancer models and has demonstrated that these gene mutations are the key factor for determining aggressiveness of tumors with p53 mutations. Dr. LaBaer and his team have also employed a micro-scale tumor model to uncover molecular interactions between cancer cells and other types of surrounding cells to find a new class of druggable targets that can block the aggressive behavior of p53-mutated cancer cells.
Dr. LaBaer will continue using state-of-the-art cellular, molecular, and computational methods to discover and validate target genes and their mechanisms of action and will expand his search for a class of drug targetable mutations that could be translated into developing personalized treatment regimes.
Joshua LaBaer is one of the nation’s foremost investigators in the rapidly expanding field of personalized medicine. Formerly director of the Harvard Institute of Proteomics (HIP), he was recruited to ASU’s Biodesign Institute as the first Piper Chair in Personalized Medicine. Dr. LaBaer’s efforts involve leveraging the Center’s formidable resources for the discovery and validation of biomarkers—unique molecular fingerprints of disease—which can provide early warning for those at risk of major illnesses, including cancer and diabetes. This work is carried out in conjunction with the Partnership for Personalized Medicine, a multi-institution effort that includes the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute in Seattle.
Dr. LaBaer is a board certified physician in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology and was an Instructor and Clinical Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and now serves as Adjunct Professor of Medicine, Mayo Clinic. He has contributed to over 140 original research publications, is an associate editor of the Journal of Proteome Research, a member of the editorial boards of Analytical Biochemistry, Current Opinion in Biotechnology, Cancer Biomarkers, Molecular Biosystems, and Clinical Proteomics. Formerly a member of the NCI’s Board of Scientific Advisors, he serves as chair of the NCI’s Early Detection Research Network Executive Committee and Co-Chair of its Steering Committee. He is the president of the US Human Proteome Organization and serves on a number of government and industry scientific advisory boards. He earned his medical degree and doctorate (biochemistry and biophysics) at University of California, San Francisco.
2001
The Play for P.I.N.K. Award
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