Tulane Cancer Center and Tulane University announce the Third Annual

Past years' seminars and speakers

About the Award:

2006 Mauvernay Research Excellence Seminar Schedule

Monday, November 20, 2006
1st Floor Atrium and Conference Room
J. Bennett Johnston Building
1324 Tulane Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70112

Program

2006 Mauvernay Research Excellence Awardees

2006 Mauvernay Research Excellence Scholar:

Frank Jones, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biochemistry

2006 Mauvernay Research Excellence Honorees and Poster Presenters:

Up-Regulation of CXCR4 Expression in PC-3 Cells by CXCL12 (SDF-1alpha) Increases Endothelial Adhesion and Trans-Endothelial Migration Via a MEK-ERK Pathway Dependent NF-kappaB Activation
Krishna C. Agrawal, Ph.D.
Chairman and Regents Professor of Pharmacology

Development of Agents to Deplete Regulatory T Cells as Novel Anti-Tumor Immunotherapy
Michael Brumlik, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Section of Hematology and Medical Oncology

Glyceollins, a New Class of Dual-Specific Estrogen Receptor and Kinase Targeting Anti-Tumor Agents
Matthew E. Burow, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Section of Hematology and Medical Oncology

Intracellular Immunization of siRNA Targeted to the Stem-Loop II of 5'Untranslated Region Effectively Inhibits Expression and Replication of Different HCV Genotypes
Srikanta Dash, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pathology
Director of Hepatitis Research Laboratory

Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus (KSHV) G Protein-Coupled Receptor Induces Angiogenesis and Serves as a Putative Switch from Viral Latency to Promote KS Pathogenesis
Cindy Morris, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology

Using Old Drugs in a New Way: Combination of Organic Selenium with Tamoxifen Suppresses Breast Cancer Cells and Resensitizes Resistant Cells to Tamoxifen
Brian Rowan, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Structural and Cellular Biology

2006 Mauvernay Research Excellence Seminar Speakers

Estrogen Mediated Mechanisms of Generating Estrogen Receptor Alpha Positive and Negative Breast Cancers
Priscilla A. Furth, M.D.
Professor and Director, Cellular and Molecular Biology Division, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University

Dr. Furth obtained her M.D. from Yale University, and completed an Internal Medicine residency at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, fellowship training in Infectious Disease at Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the Tumor Virus Biology Laboratory at NCI, NIH. In 1992-1993 she was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Goettingen, Germany. She rose through faculty ranks at the University of Maryland Medical School before moving to Georgetown in 2001. She has written more than 90 publications, including journal articles and book chapters, and has served on numerous national and international grant review panels. She is a member of Sigma Xi, the American Association for Cancer Research, the Society of Investigative Pathology, the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine, and the Society for the Study of Reproduction. Dr. Furth’s research interests include development of mouse models of human disease, in vivo investigations of hormone signaling pathways, breast cancer prevention/treatment of preneoplasia, and cancer survivorship.

Imatinib as a Paradigm of Molecularly Targeted Cancer Therapies
Brian J. Druker, M.D.
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research, Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute

Dr. Brian Druker is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and JELD-WEN Chair of Leukemia Research at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) Cancer Institute. Upon graduating from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in 1981, Dr. Druker completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Barnes Hospital, Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He then trained in oncology at Harvard's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Druker then returned to the lab to begin his research career studying the regulation of the growth of cancer cells and the practical application to cancer therapies. His work was instrumental in the development of Gleevec (imatinib), a drug that targets the molecular defect in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). After completing a series of preclinical studies, Dr. Druker spearheaded the highly successful clinical trials of imatinib for CML. Imatinib is currently FDA-approved for CML and gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). His role in the development of imatinib and its application in the clinic have resulted in numerous awards for Dr. Druker, including the John J. Kenney Award from The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the AACR-Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award, the Warren Alpert Prize from Harvard Medical School, the American Society of Hematology’s Dameshek Prize, the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s Pioneer of Survivorship Carpe Diem Award, the American Cancer Society’s Medal of Honor, the Kettering Prize from General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, and the David A. Karnofsky Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology. In 2003, he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

Discovery and Development of a Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor as a Cancer Drug
Paul A. Marks, M.D.
President Emeritus and Member, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Dr. Paul A. Marks is president emeritus of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and a member of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. He was president and CEO of MSKCC (1980-1999). He received his A.B. and M.D. degrees from Columbia University and completed postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, and the Pasteur Institute, Paris. Following his period at the Pasteur, he returned to Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons as an assistant professor and was promoted to professor of medicine in 1967. In 1968, he was named professor of human genetics and Frode Jensen Professor of Medicine (1968-80) and the first chairman of the newly created Department of Human Genetics and Development. In 1970, he was elected dean of the faculty of medicine (1970-73), and in 1973 became vice president of health sciences and director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center (1973-80) at Columbia University. In 1980, he was recruited to be the first president and CEO of the combined Memorial Hospital and Sloan Kettering Institute - the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He held these positions until he retired in December 1999. Since January 2000, he has been a member of the Sloan Kettering Institute, pursuing his research as head of the Laboratory of Cancer Cell Biology.

Dr. Marks has published over 400 scientific articles in various scholarly journals. His research over the past 3 decades has focused on the discovery and development of approaches to selectively arrest cancer cell growth. He and his colleagues identified a series of small molecules-- hydroxamic acid based hybrid polar compounds ---that inhibit histone deacetylases (HDAC), enzymes that play a role in regulating gene expression, cell growth and cell death and can cause death of a variety of cancer cells, with little or no toxicity to normal cells. The lead compound, SAHA, is in advanced clinical testing and has shown significant anti-cancer activity in patients with both hematologic and solid malignancies with relatively few side effects. HDAC inhibitors represent a new approach to cancer therapy. SAHA is under FDA review for approval.

Dr. Marks is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and The Institute of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served on many governmental and non-governmental committees and boards, including the President’s Commission on Three Mile Island, the President’s National Cancer Advisory Board, Councils of the National Academies, and the boards of several academic institutions in this country and abroad. He has received a number of honors, including the Distinguished Achievement Medal of Columbia University; the Japan Foundation for the Promotion of Cancer Research Medal; the Centenary Medal of the Pasteur Institute; the John Stearns Award for Lifetime Achievement in Medicine of The New York Academy of Medicine; and the President's National Medal of Science (USA). He has honorary degrees from several universities, including his alma mater, Columbia University.

Dr. Marks was a founder of the biotechnology company, Aton Pharma, Inc., that had an exclusive license from Columbia to develop SAHA as a cancer therapeutic. Aton is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck.

2006 Mauvernay Research Excellence Scholar Address
Selective Activation of Tumor Cell Apoptosis by a Stabilized Peptidomimetic Representing the BH3-Domain of ERBB4/HER4
Frank Jones, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biochemistry, Tulane University Health Sciences, 2006 Mauvernay Scholar


Dr. Jones received his B.S. from State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in 1984, his M.S. from Iowa State University in 1986, and his Ph.D. from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in 1995. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine, Department of Pathology, under David Stern from 1995 - 1999. His research there involved elucidation of the roles the EGFR-family and their ligands play in normal breast development and breast cancer. In 1999, Dr. Jones served as a research scientist at the University of Scranton, Institute of Molecular Biology and Medicine, where he was principal investigator of the Cancer Research Lab. His principal interests included identification of prognostic factors in breast and prostate cancers using transgenic and tissue-specific knockout mouse models. He joined the faculty of the Tulane University Health Sciences Center in July 2001 as an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and a member of the Tulane Cancer Center. He was promoted to associate professor in July of 2005.

In addition to being named the 2006 Mauvernay Research Excellence Scholar, Dr. Jones has been a past Mauvernay honoree and poster presenter in 2003 and 2004. He received the Tulane University Health Sciences Center Research Commendation from the Office of the Senior Vice President for Health Sciences in 2005.

Dr. Jones is an ad hoc member of the NIH/NCI Study Section on Molecular Oncogenesis, a member of the Pathobiology Panel of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Breast Cancer Research Program, and an invited reviewer for the same program’s Breast Cancer Concepts Awards. He is on the editorial board for Molecular Cancer and is an invited reviewer for eighteen other peer-reviewed medical journals. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Association for Cancer Research. His research is currently supported by five national competitive grants, and he has two patent applications in progress.

For More Information, Contact:

Melanie Cross, Tulane Cancer Center
1430 Tulane Ave. Box SL-68, New Orleans, LA 70112-2699
(504) 988-6592
mcross@tulane.edu

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