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Recent Publications

Profiling ovarian cancer tumor and microenvironment during disease progression for cell-based immunotherapy design

iScience

Profile a set of OC patient samples spanning chemonaive and recurrent diseases

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Inability of ovarian cancers to upregulate their MHC-class I surface expression marks their aggressiveness and increased susceptibility to NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity

Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy

We extended our previous observations with other tumor models to study seven ovarian tumor cell lines-OVCAR3, OVCAR4, OVCAR8, SKOV3, Kuramochi, OAW28, and CaOV3. We found that NK cells targeted and killed poorly differentiated OVCAR8 and CAOV3; these two tumor lines express lower MHC-class I and higher CD44 surface receptors. OVCAR3 and OVCAR4 were more resistant to NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity, and SKOV3, Kuramochi and OAW28 had intermediate sensitivity to NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity, likely representing well-differentiated and moderately differentiated ovarian tumor cell lines, respectively.

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cfTrack: Exome-wide mutation analysis of cell-free DNA to simultaneously monitor the full spectrum of cancer treatment outcomes: MRD, recurrence, and evolution

Clinical Cancer Research

Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) offers a non-invasive approach to monitor cancer. Here we develop a method using whole-exome sequencing (WES) of cfDNA for simultaneously monitoring the full spectrum of cancer treatment outcomes, including MRD, recurrence, evolution, and second primary cancers.

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Efficacy of birinapant in combination with carboplatin in targeting platinum‑resistant epithelial ovarian cancers

International Journal of Oncology

Patients diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancers (EOCs) often suffer from disease relapse associated with the emergence of resistance to standard platinum‑based chemotherapy. Treatment of patients with chemo‑resistant disease remains a clinical challenge. One mechanism of chemoresistance includes ...

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Combining ReACp53 with Carboplatin to Target High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancers

Cancers

Ovarian malignancies are a leading cause of cancer-related death for US women. High-grade serous ovarian carcinomas (HGSOCs), the most common ovarian cancer subtype, are aggressive tumors with poor outcomes. Mutations in TP53 are common in HGSOCs, with a subset resulting in p53 aggregation and misregulation. ReACp53 is a peptide designed to inhibit mutant p53 aggregation and has been shown efficacious in targeting cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. As p53 regulates apoptosis, combining ReACp53 with carboplatin represents a logical therapeutic strategy.

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Exploring the Potential of Drug Response Assays for Precision Medicine in Ovarian Cancer

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

One of the major challenges in the treatment of cancer are differential responses of patients to existing standard of care anti-cancer drugs. These differential responses may, in part, be due to a diverse range of genomic, epigenomic, proteomic, and metabolic alterations among individuals suffering from the same type of cancer. Precision medicine is an emerging approach in cancer therapeutics...

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Matched sequential tumor molecular profiling in solid malignancies may impact clinical practice

Cancer Genetics

To determine if performing repeat tumor molecular profiling in solid malignancies over time can identify new findings that impact clinical care...

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Expression of stromal progesterone receptor and differential methylation patterns in the endometrium may correlate with response to progesterone therapy in endometrial complex atypical hyperplasia

Reproductive Sciences

Progesterone therapy is a viable treatment for complex atypical hyperplasia (CAH) and endometrial adenocarcinoma, though reliable molecular determinants of response are not available. To explore if analysis of pre-therapy endometrial biopsies could yield biomarkers of response to progesterone...

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A simple high-throughput approach identifies actionable drug sensitivities in patient-derived tumor organoids

Communications Biology

Tumor organoids maintain cell–cell interactions, heterogeneity, microenvironment, and drug response of the sample they originate from. Thus, there is increasing interest in developing tumor organoid models for drug development and personalized medicine applications. Although organoids are...

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A Designed Inhibitor of p53 Aggregation Rescues p53 Tumor Suppression in Ovarian Carcinomas.

Cancer Cell

Half of all human cancers lose p53 function by missense mutations, with an unknown fraction of these containing p53 in a self-aggregated amyloid-like state. Here we show that...

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Tubal Ligation Induces Quiescence in the Epithelia of the Fallopian Tube Fimbria.

Reproductive Sciences

Tubal ligation keeps the fimbriated end of the fallopian tube intact while interrupting the conduit for sperm and egg between the uterus and ovary. Tubal ligation is associated with an approximately 20% decreased risk of high-grade serous ovarian cancers, which mounting evidence suggests arise from the distal fallopian tube epithelium. We postulated that...

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Low levels of circulating estrogen sensitize PTEN-null endometrial tumors to PARP inhibition in vivo.

Molecular Cancer Therapy

Earlier in vitro work demonstrated that PARP inhibition induces cell death in PTEN-null endometrial cancer cell lines, but the in vivo therapeutic efficacy of these agents against endometrial cancer remains unknown. Here, we test the efficacy of...

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