OSUCCC – JAMES GRAND ROUNDS

The 2017-18 OSUCCC – James Grand Rounds series continues on selected Fridays throughout the academic year. All lectures take place from 8-9 a.m. in James L035 (Wasserstrom Family Conference Room on the Conference Level) unless otherwise noted, with breakfast available at 7:45 a.m. The next lecture will take place on Friday, March 2. Below are biosketches for the next presenters.

MARCH 2 – Charles Perou, PhD, professor of genetics and of pathology & laboratory medicine at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina (UNC), will present Precision Medicine for Triple-Negative Breast Cancer Patients Using a Systems Biology Approach” at 8 a.m. on March 2 in L035 James.

Dr. Perou, who also is The May Goldman Shaw Distinguished Professor of Molecular Oncology at UNC, is a renowned medical scientist whose laboratory team translates basic science discoveries into cancer therapies. His research interests span the disciplines of cancer biology, genomics, genetics, bioinformatics, statistics, systems biology and the treatment of patients in the clinic. His lab team’s primary experimental focus is on breast cancer.

In part through their work on The Cancer Genome Atlas Breast Cancer Project, Dr. Perou and colleagues have demonstrated that breast tumors can be classified into five molecular subtypes and are examining the genetic origins of each through such experimental approaches as RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq), single-cell RNA-seq, DNA exome sequencing, whole-genome sequencing, cell/tissue culturing and proteomics. His UNC website states that a major contribution of his to the field of precision medicine has been genomic characterization of human tumors, which led to the discovery of the Intrinsic Subtypes of Breast Cancer. This gene expression-based classification “was the first to identify the basal-like/triple-negative breast cancer subtype and has been translated into a test being used in breast cancer clinics worldwide.”

Dr. Perou earned his PhD in cellular and molecular biology in 1996 from the University of Utah and completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University before joining the faculty at UNC in 2000. He has authored or co-authored more than 330 articles in scientific journals and is an inventor on five U.S. patents.

MARCH 23 – Thomas Westbrook, PhD, professor of Molecular and Human Genetics, and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), will present “From Genetics to Cancer Therapeutics: New Frontiers in the RNA World” on March 23 at 8 a.m. in L035 James.

Dr. Westbrook, who also directs the Therapeutic Innovation Center at BCM—an initiative to bridge discovery science to early therapeutic development through public-private partnerships—is a basic scientist with interests in mechanisms and models of breast cancer, and in cancer genetics and therapeutic discovery. His laboratory tackles fundamental problems in cancer biology and leverages discoveries into therapeutic approaches for patients. His team has developed genetic platforms for delineating principles and pathways that govern cancer genesis, metastasis and response to therapy.

Dr. Westbrook’s team focuses on four areas of gene discovery: finding oncogene-induced “stress pathways” and translating them into cancer therapies; repositioning anticancer therapies for triple-negative breast cancer; identifying oncogene/tumor-suppressor networks via functional gene screens; and understanding drug resistance in breast cancer.

Dr. Westbrook earned his PhD at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in Rochester, N.Y., and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He has authored or co-authored articles in such prestigious scientific journals as Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Cell Biology, Science, Cell, Cancer Cell and Journal of Clinical Investigation.