Research Faculty
- Dimitra Bourboulia, PhD
Associate ProfessorResearch Interests:- Extracellular kinase signaling
- Extracellular chaperone function
- Targeting extracellular signaling networks in urological cancers
- Gennady Bratslavsky, MD
Professor and ChairResearch Interests:Basic, clinical, and translational prostate, bladder, and kidney research.
- Leszek Kotula, MD/PhD
ProfessorResearch Interests:Cancer biology, cell signaling, the role of actin cytoskeleton in tumor progression, mouse models of cancer
- Mehdi Mollapour, PhD
ProfessorResearch Interests:Role of molecular chaperone Hsp90 in cancers
Kidney Cancer, Bladder Cancer, Breast Cancer
Tuberous Sclerosis Complex syndrome (TSC)
Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome (BHD)
- Mark Woodford, PhD
Assistant ProfessorResearch Interests:Heat shock proteins (Hsps) are a subset of molecular chaperones that function in all subcellular compartments both constitutively and in response to stress. The Hsp90 chaperone TRAP1 is primarily localized to mitochondria and controls both cellular metabolic reprogramming and mitochondrial apoptosis. TRAP1 upregulation facilitates growth and progression of many cancers by promoting glycolytic metabolism and antagonizing the mitochondrial permeability transition that precedes cell death. TRAP1 attenuation or inhibition induces apoptosis in cellular models of cancer, identifying TRAP1 as a potential therapeutic target in cancer.