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Molecular Mechanisms of Tumor Growth

Program Leader: Eileen White, Ph.D.

Overall Goal: To understand the fine balance between cell growth and cell death and to apply this knowledge to the understanding of human malignancies.

Specific Goals:

  • To understand the molecular mechanisms of response to DNA damage and control of cell-cycle checkpoints and how these functions are altered in cancer.
  • To determine the mechanisms of regulation of cell death in normal and malignant cells and how this affects response to anticancer therapies.
  • To identify the signal transduction pathways that regulate control of cell growth, proliferation and death and how these are altered in malignancy.

    • Fulfillment of these goals will lead to a better understanding of the coordination of cell proliferation and cell death mechanisms that are basic to cell biology and physiology, but whose normal functions are altered in malignancy. These insights will continue to provide new model systems and new approaches to cancer diagnosis, prognosis, treatment and prevention.