Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling

The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center is an interdisciplinary initiative that combines basic science, clinical research, epidemiology/cancer control, and patient care throughout the University of California, San Francisco. The Center's mission is the discovery and evolution of new ideas and information about cancer, from basic research to clinical implementation.


UCSF's long tradition of excellence in cancer research includes, notably, Nobel Prize-winning work of J. Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus, who discovered cancer-causing oncogenes. Their work opened new doors for exploring genetic mistakes that cause cancer and formed the basis for some of the most important cancer research happening today.


Basic scientific research underpins all of our efforts to design and evaluate new tools to treat cancer patients everywhere. Hence, cancer research at UCSF encompasses studies on the regulation of the eukaryotic cell division cycle, exploration of the machinery and the control of programmed cell death (apoptosis), regulation of cellular lifespan and the acquisition of cellular immortality, the control of DNA repair, the role of the immune system in cancer initiation and progression, tumor angiogenesis, cell invasion and metastasis and the design and application of mouse models of human cancer. Information of the broad range of cancer research activities can be found at the Cancer Center webpage.

 

Participating Faculty

Rushika Perera, PhD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Tissue / Organ Biology & Endocrinology
Research Summary: 
Organelle dynamics (autophagy, lysosomes, mitochondria) and metabolic reprogramming in cancer.

Joanna Phillips, MD, PhD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Neurobiology
Research Summary: 
Tumor-microenvironment interactions regulating brain tumorigenesis

Jason Pomerantz, MD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Developmental & Stem Cell Biology
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Research Summary: 
Mesenchymal tissue regeneration

David Raleigh, PhD, MD

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.

Vijay Ramani, PhD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Human Genetics
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Research Summary: 
Our lab develops new genome-scale methods to study mammalian chromatin structure and transcriptional regulation

Jeremy Reiter, MD, PhD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Developmental & Stem Cell Biology
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Research Summary: 
Signaling at the Primary Cilium, the Cell's Antenna

Dorit Ron, PhD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Neurobiology
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Research Summary: 
Molecular neurobiology of drug addiction
Mentorship Development: 

10/20/20    Gathering in Community: a Training for Faculty and Staff    
9/11/20    Mentoring Across Differences
2/18/21    Three Truths and Three Tries: Facing and Overcoming Critical Social Justice Challenges at the Micro, Mezzo, and Macro Levels    

Jeroen Roose

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Immunology
Research Summary: 
My lab focuses on understanding cell fate decisions driven by cell-cell interactions and signaling pathways, in the context of immunology, cancer, and stem cell biology.

Kole Roybal, PhD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Immunology
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Research Summary: 
Control and Customization of Immune Cell Responses: Engineering new synthetic receptors, signal transduction cascades, and immune cell behaviors for cell therapies for cancer and autoimmunity
Mentorship Development: 

4/26/19    Sharpening your Mentoring Skills (SyMS) with Sharon Milgram (Mission Bay)

James Rubenstein, MD, PhD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Immunology

Davide Ruggero, PhD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Human Genetics
Research Summary: 
Dynamics of translation control in gene expression, cancer, and disease

Julie Saba, MD, PhD

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Human Genetics
Research Summary: 
Sphingolipid signaling and metabolism in the pathophysiology and treatment of cancer, inflammatory conditions, and rare diseases

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