Small RNA Regulation of Cancer Metastasis: Molecular Mechanisms and Therapeutic Application

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Sohail Tavazoie, M.D., Ph.D., senior attending physician, Leon Hess Associate Professor and head, Elizabeth and Vincent Meyer Laboratory of Systems Cancer Biology, The Rockefeller University

Speaker bio(s)

Metastatic disease is the primary cause of cancer mortality but remains poorly understood. Dr. Tavazoie will discuss work done by his laboratory that has contributed to our understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying metastasis formation. These studies have revealed that modulated expression of tissue-specific sets of small-RNAs drives metastasis formation in distinct cancer types by altering expression of critical downstream genes. Mechanistic studies have revealed that these genes activate pathways that alter the cellular, metabolic, or matrix composition of the metastatic niche—enhancing the survival, immune-evasive, and invasive capacity of cancer cells. These biological insights have been applied towards development of an anti-metastatic small-molecule therapeutic that is currently in a national first-in-human phase-1 trial. Such studies of human cancer have also unexpectedly uncovered previously unknown mechanisms of gene regulation. One example is the discovery of a novel class of tRNA-derived small-RNA fragments that are conserved from nematodes to man and repress gene expression. Overall, these basic studies are defining principles underlying metastasis formation and gene-regulation and enabling development of a new class of experimental therapeutics targeting metastatic disease.​

Dr. Tavazoie received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley, his Ph.D. from Harvard University and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Following a residency and internship in internal medicine at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, he joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as a clinical fellow in 2005 and became a research fellow in medical oncology in 2006. He joined Rockefeller as an assistant professor in 2009 and was named associate professor in 2015. Dr. Tavazoie has been the recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and a combined American Society of Clinical Oncology and American Association for Cancer Research Young Investigator Award. He has also been named a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, a Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research Scholar, a Department of Defense Era of Hope Scholar and a Sinsheimer Foundation Scholar, and has received an Emerald Foundation Young Investigator Award and the Pershing Square Sohn Prize. He is an attending medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Open to

Public

Host

Leslie B. Vosshall, Ph.D.

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Justin Sloboda

Phone

(212) 327-7785

Sponsor

Justin Sloboda
(212) 327-7785
jsloboda@rockefeller.edu

Readings

http://librarynews.rockefeller.edu/?p=4801