Assistant Professor
Baylor College of Medicine
I am currently an Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine in the Department of Neurosurgery and in the Program in Cell and Gene Therapy. My lab's research focuses on understanding mechanisms of gene regulation in pediatric high grade glioma (HGG) and on optimizing epigenome-targeting therapies. We have identified epigenome-targeting drugs as potential therapies for HGG like LSD1 and HDAC inhibitors, and a major goal of my research group is to optimize different combinations of these drugs to synergistically inhibit HGG tumorigenesis. One common feature of HGG is the abnormal activation of stem cell genes. A second major goal is to determine how chromatin regulators and histone modifying enzymes are co-opted by oncogenes like H3K27M mutant histones to drive stem cell gene activation and promote tumor heterogeneity. Finally, in addition to small molecule inhibitors, chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CART) targeting HGG antigens like GD2 and HER2 have shown promise in recent clinical studies. A third goal of my research group is develop strategies for targeting the epigenome to prime HGG tumors for enhanced CAR-T cell targeting.
