Vincent Bernard
Assistant Professor
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center at Houston
Department of Gastrointestinal Radiation Oncology
Our laboratory takes a systems oncology approach to gastrointestinal malignancies, integrating single cell and spatial transcriptomics, functional genomics, and radiation biology to define the molecular circuits that govern tumor initiation, clonal evolution, and therapy resistance.
Active projects span (i) mapping epithelial–stromal–immune interactions that drive therapy response, (ii) dissecting metabolic vulnerabilities of GI malignancies (iii) testing combinatorial treatment strategies with radiation therapy.
Graduate students will join a multidisciplinary team and can tailor tutorials to choose from wet lab or computational tracks to:
1) perform small molecule screens and radiation response assays in engineered pancreatic and other GI cancer cell lines; 2) analyze single cell or spatial omics data from patient biopsies and mouse models; and
3) evaluate therapeutic hypotheses in enetically engineered and patient derived xenograft models, with access to longitudinal human biospecimens for rapid bench to bedside translation. Trainees will gain hands on expertise in molecular cloning, radiation clonogenic survival and metabolic assays, next generation sequencing, advanced bioinformatics, and translational study design, while engaging closely with radiation oncologists, surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, and pathologists.
Education & Training
PhD. - University of Puerto Rico - 2020