We are hiring multiple positions at the rank of Assistant, Associate or Full Professor in the Department of Cancer Genetics and Genomics.
Apply nowUnderstanding how cells transform into cancer
The Department of Cancer Genetics & Genomics at Roswell Park studies the role of individual genes – as well as large sets of genes (genomics) – in cancer. We know that cancer is fundamentally a disease caused by multiple genetic alterations, but it also involves large-scale ‘re-programming’ of many genes (epigenomics).
Meet our chair
“My interest in science started when I was a kid,” recalls Dr. Ohm. “By the time I was doing my postdoctoral work, I was immersed in looking at how genes are regulated and passed down genetically. Cancer epigenetics is a hot spot, and we’re starting to see epigenetic therapies really moving forward, with Roswell Park emerging as a global leader in combining epigenetics therapy with immunotherapy.”
“Over time, I’ve come to learn that even the studies I thought were horrible failures ended up being important and shaped the next steps towards progress and success.”
Roswell Park 2022 Big Game Commercial | "My Why"
In Roswell Park's 2022 Big Game Commercial, Dr. Ohm shares her moving story about the reason why she's dedicated to achieving Roswell Park's vision to free our world from the fear, pain, and loss due to cancer.
What we do
As we understand the genes and pathways that contribute to tumorigenesis, we hope to identify novel targets for therapeutic intervention and provide biomarkers for the better diagnosis, staging and risk assessment for individual cancer patients.
- Identify and isolate novel genes that are important in the development of specific cancers, and characterize the mechanism of action of the protein products of these aberrant genes.
- Apply our knowledge of human oncogenes to aid in the clinical management of cancer patients.
- Investigate epigenetic mechanisms that drive the development of cancer.
- Use genomic approaches to discover cancer-causing genes, understand the response to therapies (including immunotherapy) and identify new targets for therapy.
A better understanding of mechanisms involved in tumorigenesis will provide the opportunity to manipulate these pathways in animal models and also will contribute to a fundamental understanding of cancer and potentially generate the opportunity to test new treatment regimens in vivo.
Upcoming seminars
January 26: Lizhong Wang, MD PhD, University of Alabama at Birmingham
11 a.m. - 12 p.m. Zebro Conference Room, Center for Genetics & Pharmacology, Roswell park Comprehensive Cancer Center
For more information, please contact Taylor.Petroff@RoswellPark.org.
Spotlight: Edwin Yau, MD, PhD
Dr. Yau's lab is interested in translational studies for patients with lung cancers, particularly KRAS and STK11 mutated genomic subsets of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), using immunogenomic analysis and functional genomic screening. Ongoing projects include the development of early detection assays using collateral CRISPR systems and development of novel therapeutics for genomic subsets of NSCLC and Lung SCC.
Shared Resources
Gene Targeting and Transgenic
State-of-the-art transgenic technologies, methods, and models
Learn more
Gene Modulation Services
Supporting investigators interested in modulating gene expression
Learn moreTraining the next generation of scientists
In addition to our research and community outreach, the Department of Cancer Genetics & Genomics is actively involved in hands-on teaching with Master’s and PhD students in our highly competitive graduate studies program.
Our multidisciplinary education model allows students a unique immersive experience, preparing them for successful careers as independent investigators.
See the science
Publications
- Ellegate J Jr, Mastri M, Isenhart E, Krolewski JJ, Chatta G, Kauffman E, Moffitt M, Eng KH. Loss of MAGEC3 Expression Is Associated with Prognosis in Advanced Ovarian Cancers. Cancers (Basel). 2022 Jan 30;14(3). doi: 10.3390/cancers14030731. PubMed PMID: 35158998; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8833712.
- Vickman RE, Aaron-Brooks L, Zhang R, Lanman NA, Lapin B, Gil V, Greenberg M, Sasaki T, Cresswell GM, Broman MM, Paez JS, Petkewicz J, Talaty P, Helfand BT, Glaser AP, Wang CH, Franco OE, Ratliff TL, Nastiuk KL, Crawford SE, Hayward SW. TNF is a potential therapeutic target to suppress prostatic inflammation and hyperplasia in autoimmune disease. Nat Commun. 2022 Apr 19;13(1):2133. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29719-1. PMID: 35440548; PMCID: PMC9018703.
- Martin JC, Sims JR, Gupta A, Hagoel TJ, Gao L, Lynch ML, Woloszynska A, Melendy T, Kane JF, Kuechle J, Ohm JE. CDC7 kinase (DDK) inhibition disrupts DNA replication leading to mitotic catastrophe in Ewing sarcoma. Cell Death Discov. 2022 Feb 26;8(1):85. doi: 10.1038/s41420-022-00877-x. PubMed PMID: 35220396; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8882187.
- Boison D, Masino SA, Lubin FD, Guo K, Lusardi T, Sanchez R, Ruskin DN, Ohm J, Geiger JD, Hur J. The impact of methodology on the reproducibility and rigor of DNA methylation data. Sci Rep. 2022 Jan 10;12(1):380. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-04346-w. PubMed PMID: 35013473; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8748700.
- Hagoel TJ, Cortes Gomez E, Gupta A, Twist CJ, Kozielski R, Martin JC, Gao L, Kuechle J, Singh PK, Lynch M, Wei L, Liu S, Wang J, Ohm JE. Clinicopathologic and molecular analysis of a BCOR-CCNB3 undifferentiated sarcoma of the kidney reveals significant epigenetic alterations. Cold Spring Harb Mol Case Stud. 2022 Jan;8(1). doi: 10.1101/mcs.a005942. Print 2022 Jan. PubMed PMID: 34819304; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8744494.
- Zonneville J, Wang M, Alruwaili MM, Smith B, Melnick M, Eng KH, Melendy T, Park BH, Iyer R, Fountzilas C, Bakin AV. Selective therapeutic strategy for p53-deficient cancer by targeting dysregulation in DNA repair. Commun Biol. 2021 Jul 12;4(1):862. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02370-0. PubMed PMID: 34253820; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8275734.
- He X, Zhou S, Dolan M, Shi Y, Wang J, Quinn B, Jahagirdar D, Huang WC, Tsuji M, Pili R, Ito F, Ortega J, Abrams SI, Ebos JML, Lovell JF. Immunization with short peptide particles reveals a functional CD8+ T-cell neoepitope in a murine renal carcinoma model. J Immunother Cancer. 2021 Dec;9(12):e003101. doi: 10.1136/jitc-2021-003101. PMID: 34862254; PMCID: PMC8647534.
- Degan SE, Gelman IH. Emerging Roles for AKT Isoform Preference in Cancer Progression Pathways. Mol Cancer Res. 2021 Aug;19(8):1251-1257. doi: 10.1158/1541-7786.MCR-20-1066. Epub 2021 Apr 30. Review. PubMed PMID: 33931488; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8349788.
- Lim HJ, Yoon H, Kim H, Kang YW, Kim JE, Kim OY, Lee EY, Twizere JC, Rak J, Kim DK. Extracellular Vesicle Proteomes Shed Light on the Evolutionary, Interactive, and Functional Divergence of Their Biogenesis Mechanisms. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021;9:734950. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.734950. eCollection 2021. PubMed PMID: 34660591; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8517337.
- Kerselidou D, Dohai BS, Nelson DR, Daakour S, De Cock N, Hassoun ZAO, Kim DK, Olivet J, El Assal DC, Jaiswal A, Alzahmi A, Saha D, Pain C, Matthijssens F, Lemaitre P, Herfs M, Chapuis J, Ghesquiere B, Vertommen D, Kriechbaumer V, Knoops K, Lopez-Iglesias C, van Zandvoort M, Lambert JC, Hanson J, Desmet C, Thiry M, Lauersen KJ, Vidal M, Van Vlierberghe P, Dequiedt F, Salehi-Ashtiani K, Twizere JC. Alternative glycosylation controls endoplasmic reticulum dynamics and tubular extension in mammalian cells. Sci Adv. 2021 May;7(19). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe8349. Print 2021 May. PubMed PMID: 33962942; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8104865.
- Kim NE, Kim DK, Song YJ. SARS-CoV-2 Nonstructural Proteins 1 and 13 Suppress Caspase-1 and the NLRP3 Inflammasome Activation. Microorganisms. 2021 Feb 26;9(3). doi: 10.3390/microorganisms9030494. PubMed PMID: 33652815; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7996899.
- Li F, Aljahdali IAM, Zhang R, Nastiuk KL, Krolewski JJ, Ling X. Kidney cancer biomarkers and targets for therapeutics: survivin (BIRC5), XIAP, MCL-1, HIF1α, HIF2α, NRF2, MDM2, MDM4, p53, KRAS and AKT in renal cell carcinoma. J Exp Clin Cancer Res. 2021 Aug 12;40(1):254. doi: 10.1186/s13046-021-02026-1. Review. PubMed PMID: 34384473; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8359575.
- Illouz T, Biragyn A, Frenkel-Morgenstern M, Weissberg O, Gorohovski A, Merzon E, Green I, Iulita F, Flores-Aguilar L, Dierssen M, De Toma I, Lifshitz H, Antonarakis SE, Yu E, Herault Y, Potier MC, Botté A, Roper R, Sredni B, Sarid R, London J, Mobley W, Strydom A, Okun E. Specific Susceptibility to COVID-19 in Adults with Down Syndrome. Neuromolecular Med. 2021 Dec;23(4):561-571. doi: 10.1007/s12017-021-08651-5. Epub 2021 Mar 4. PubMed PMID: 33660221; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7929736.
- Sawa M, Overk C, Becker A, Derse D, Albay R, Weldy K, Salehi A, Beach TG, Doran E, Head E, Yu YE, Mobley WC. Impact of increased APP gene dose in Down syndrome and the Dp16 mouse model. Alzheimers Dement. 2021 Nov 10;. doi: 10.1002/alz.12463. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 34757693; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9085977.
- Brault V, Nguyen TL, Flores-Gutiérrez J, Iacono G, Birling MC, Lalanne V, Meziane H, Manousopoulou A, Pavlovic G, Lindner L, Selloum M, Sorg T, Yu E, Garbis SD, Hérault Y. Dyrk1a gene dosage in glutamatergic neurons has key effects in cognitive deficits observed in mouse models of MRD7 and Down syndrome. PLoS Genet. 2021 Sep;17(9):e1009777. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1009777. eCollection 2021 Sep. PubMed PMID: 34587162; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8480849.
- Shen H, Chen Y, Wan Y, Liu T, Wang J, Zhang Y, Wei L, Hu Q, Xu B, Chernov M, Frangou C, Zhang J. Identification of TAZ-Dependent Breast Cancer Vulnerabilities Using a Chemical Genomics Screening Approach. Front Cell Dev Biol. 2021;9:673374. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2021.673374. eCollection 2021. PubMed PMID: 34211974; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8239392.
- Ma S, Wu Z, Yang F, Zhang J, Johnson RL, Rosenfeld MG, Guan KL. Hippo signalling maintains ER expression and ER+ breast cancer growth. Nature. 2021 Mar;591(7848):E1-E10. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-03131-5. Epub 2021 Mar 3. PubMed PMID: 33658690; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8725601.
- Wei L, Christensen SR, Fitzgerald ME, Graham J, Hutson ND, Zhang C, Huang Z, Hu Q, Zhan F, Xie J, Zhang J, Liu S, Remenyik E, Gellen E, Colegio OR, Bax M, Xu J, Lin H, Huss WJ, Foster BA, Paragh G. Ultradeep sequencing differentiates patterns of skin clonal mutations associated with sun-exposure status and skin cancer burden. Sci Adv. 2021 Jan;7(1). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abd7703. Print 2021 Jan. PubMed PMID: 33523857; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7775785.
- Zonneville J, Colligan S, Grant S, Miller A, Wallace P, Abrams SI, Bakin AV. Blockade of p38 kinase impedes the mobilization of protumorigenic myeloid populations to impact breast cancer metastasis. Int J Cancer. 2020 Oct 15;147(8):2279-2292. doi: 10.1002/ijc.33050. Epub 2020 May 28. PubMed PMID: 32452014; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7484223.
- Zonneville J, Wong V, Limoge M, Nikiforov M, Bakin AV. TAK1 signaling regulates p53 through a mechanism involving ribosomal stress. Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 13;10(1):2517. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-59340-5. PubMed PMID: 32054925; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7018718.
- Oshi M, Katsuta E, Yan L, Ebos JML, Rashid OM, Matsuyama R, Endo I, Takabe K. A Novel 4-Gene Score to Predict Survival, Distant Metastasis and Response to Neoadjuvant Therapy in Breast Cancer. Cancers (Basel). 2020 May 2;12(5). doi: 10.3390/cancers12051148. PubMed PMID: 32370309; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7281399.
- Vaghi C, Rodallec A, Fanciullino R, Ciccolini J, Mochel JP, Mastri M, Poignard C, Ebos JML, Benzekry S. Population modeling of tumor growth curves and the reduced Gompertz model improve prediction of the age of experimental tumors. PLoS Comput Biol. 2020 Feb;16(2):e1007178. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007178. eCollection 2020 Feb. PubMed PMID: 32097421; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7059968.
- Audrey-Bayan C, Trager MH, Gartrell-Corrado RD, Rizk EM, Pradhan J, Silverman AM, Lopez A, Marks DK, Niedt G, Geskin LJ, Saenger YM. Distinguishing melanophages from tumor in melanoma patients treated with talimogene laherparepvec. Melanoma Res. 2020 Aug;30(4):410-415. doi: 10.1097/CMR.0000000000000661. PubMed PMID: 32379409; NIHMSID:NIHMS1734307.
- Pan C, Jaiswal Agrawal N, Zulia Y, Singh S, Sha K, Mohler JL, Eng KH, Chakkalakal JV, Krolewski JJ, Nastiuk KL. Prostate tumor-derived GDF11 accelerates androgen deprivation therapy-induced sarcopenia. JCI Insight. 2020 Mar 26;5(6). doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.127018. PubMed PMID: 32078585; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7213789.
- Dy GK, Khalil M, Yau E. First-line cytotoxic chemotherapy regimen for non-small cell lung cancer in the elderly population: plus ça change. Transl Lung Cancer Res. 2020 Aug;9(4):1591-1594. doi: 10.21037/tlcr-2020-15. PubMed PMID: 32953530; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7481582.
- Iovoli AJ, Hermann GM, Ma SJ, Platek AJ, Farrugia MK, Yau E, Wooten KE, Arshad H, Gupta V, Kuriakose MA, Hicks WL Jr, Singh AK. Association of Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drug Use With Survival in Patients With Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck Treated With Chemoradiation Therapy. JAMA Netw Open. 2020 Jun 1;3(6):e207199. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.7199. PubMed PMID: 32602907; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7327544.
- Wang S, Zhang Q, Tiwari SK, Lichinchi G, Yau EH, Hui H, Li W, Furnari F, Rana TM. Integrin αvβ5 Internalizes Zika Virus during Neural Stem Cells Infection and Provides a Promising Target for Antiviral Therapy. Cell Rep. 2020 Jan 28;30(4):969-983.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2019.11.020. Epub 2020 Jan 16. PubMed PMID: 31956073; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7293422.
In the news
Contact us
Department Administrator
Email: Jennifer.Panaro@RoswellPark.org
Administrative Assistant
Email: Taylor.Petroff@RoswellPark.org
Scientific Research Project Specialist
Email: Alexandra.Valentine@RoswellPark.org