David Raleigh, PhD, MD

Asst. Professor in Residence
Radiation Oncology
Neurological Surgery
Research Overview: 

We are interested in understanding how developmental signaling pathway drive the growth of brain tumors. My lab helped reveal how oncogenic Hedgehog signaling induces medulloblastoma, the most common pediatric brain cancer, and how forkhead box transcription factors control meningioma, the most common brain tumor in adults. Using evolutionary biology, biochemistry, mouse genetics and lipidomic mass spectrometry, we discovered a family of oxysterol lipids that drive both developmental and oncogenic Hedgehog signaling. Our research has also made use of human patient samples, multiplatform next generation sequencing, machine learning, radiologic and radiomic analyses to identify FOXM1 as a master transcription factor for aggressive meningioma growth. Ongoing projects aim to: (1) further characterize the role of lipids as signaling molecules in development and disease, (2) understand intra-brain tumor evolution and molecular heterogeneity, (3) determine how development Hedgehog signaling becomes oncogenic, and (4) translate these discoveries into early-phase clinical trials for cancer patients.

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Developmental & Stem Cell Biology
Research Summary: 
We are interested in understanding how developmental signaling pathway drive the growth of brain tumors.

Websites

Featured Publications: 

Hedgehog signaling drives medulloblastoma growth via CDK6.

The Journal of clinical investigation

Raleigh DR, Choksi PK, Krup AL, Mayer W, Santos N, Reiter JF

Comprehensive Molecular Profiling Identifies FOXM1 as a Key Transcription Factor for Meningioma Proliferation.

Cell reports

Vasudevan HN, Braunstein SE, Phillips JJ, Pekmezci M, Tomlin BA, Wu A, Reis GF, Magill ST, Zhang J, Feng FY, Nicholaides T, Chang SM, Sneed PK, McDermott MW, Berger MS, Perry A, Raleigh DR

Histopathologic review of pineal parenchymal tumors identifies novel morphologic subtypes and prognostic factors for outcome.

Neuro-oncology

Raleigh DR, Solomon DA, Lloyd SA, Lazar A, Garcia MA, Sneed PK, Clarke JL, McDermott MW, Berger MS, Tihan T, Haas-Kogan DA

Histopathological features predictive of local control of atypical meningioma after surgery and adjuvant radiotherapy.

Journal of neurosurgery

Chen WC, Magill ST, Wu A, Vasudevan HN, Morin O, Aghi MK, Theodosopoulos PV, Perry A, McDermott MW, Sneed PK, Braunstein SE, Raleigh DR

How the Ciliary Membrane Is Organized Inside-Out to Communicate Outside-In.

Current biology : CB

Garcia G, Raleigh DR, Reiter JF