overview

Drug resistance hampers the effectiveness of nearly all cancer therapies. Tumors that initially respond to treatment, eventually become resistant to therapy, resulting relapse.

Our lab researches how cancer cells develop drug resistance, and more specifically, how the tumor microenvironment provides support and protection to tumor cells, making them more drug resistant. These studies will allow us to develop better strategies to overcome drug resistance by identifying more effective therapies for the treatment of cancer.

Our previous research suggest that the tumor microenvironment plays a critical role in protecting cancer cells from drug treatments, and part of our research is aimed at finding drug targets in the tumor microenvironment that could be either used to circumvent the development of drug resistance, or prevent the protective signals from the microenvironment from reaching the tumor cells. As an alternative approach we are also studying molecules within the tumor cells themselves that regulate the emergence of drug resistance, and developing ways to target these molecules.