What is Research?

Signal transduction pathways converging on the tumor suppressor p53 are central in the regulation of cell growth and cell death. Conventional chemotherapeutics result in p53 checkpoint activation. However when the p53 pathway is blocked a more targeted chemotherapeutic approach will be required to result in an outcome of cell death. A focus on such targeted approaches are central to the experiments being carried out in the Bargonetti laboratory. The work in my laboratory focuses on the molecular signal transduction pathways activated by various chemotherapeutic drugs to bring about differential activation of p53 target genes as well as to activate alternative p53-independent cell death pathways that facilitate killing resistant cancer cells. Presently this work is carried out using human cancer cell line models and with a C. elegans nematode model system. Most recently work in my laboratory has characterized that the nucleoside analogue 8-amino-adenosine kills metastatic breast cancers independently of activating the p53-pathway.