Page 24 - Annual Report 2020

Luke Hoeppner, Ph.D.
Cancer Biology
SECTION LEADER / ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
“Our team is focused on making basic science discoveries that have strong promise to translate to the clinic to improve the health of individuals in our local community
and beyond.”
Luke Hoeppner
Li Wang Kayum Alam Zhu Zhu
Our group studies the molecular basis of human Our research team has made outstanding progress
disease. A primary research goal is discover-
ing new strategies to combat lung cancer. In particular, we seek to identify cellular mechanisms that enable tumors to initiate, grow, invade other organs, and resist therapy. Using this new knowl- edge, our goal is to develop innovative approaches
to prevent, predict, diagnose, and treat cancer. Our team is also investigating the molecular regulation of vascular permeability, a process that plays a role in the pathology of cancer, heart disease, and stroke.
on numerous research directions this past year. First, we discovered new molecular mechanisms of small cell lung cancer growth and neuroendocrine tumor cell survival (British Journal of Cancer, 2020). These innovative studies were led by Dr. Sk. Kayum Alam, a talented senior postdoctoral fellow working in our group. Dr. Alam recently received a prestigious Fifth District Eagles Telethon Postdoc Award to help accelerate our discoveries. Dr. Li Wang, another dedicated postdoctoral trainee, specializes in
SUMMARY
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