Associate Professor
Department of Sarcoma Medical Oncology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
As a physician-scientist in the Sarcoma Dept. at MDACC, my laboratory includes a diverse multidisciplinary research team of scientists interested in discovering how tumor microenvironmental cues, particularly biophysical forces and ECM, regulate the spatial organization, phenotype, and differentiation state of bone sarcomas. In particular, we aim to decipher how those parameters affect tumor sensitivity to biologically targeted therapies.
Our work covers a wide range of interests that span from the pure basic sciences (developmental biology, epigenetics, and biophysical control of lineage commitment) to more translational research aspects that affect how sarcomas respond to biologically-targeted therapies. Recent basic-science efforts have employed single-cell sequencing to quantify how aberrant expression of EMT-related transcription factors (e.g., YAP/TAZ, AXL, and TWIST) alters cell fate and metastatic potential.
As applied to Ewing sarcoma, osteosarcoma, and DSRCT (the core focus of my lab), we aim to identify synergistic therapies that modulate cell fate and reduce tumor metastasis. Ultimately, we hope this strategy improves the survival rate of patients diagnosed with high-risk bone or soft-tissue sarcomas.
