The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center at Houston
Department of Experimental Therapeutics

My laboratory studies how cancer cells reprogram chromatin and transcriptional networks to drive tumor initiation, progression, therapy resistance, and immune evasion. Cancer cells display an altered chromatin landscape that leads to widespread changes in gene expression, and genes involved in chromatin remodeling and epigenetic regulation are among the most frequently altered across many human cancers, including prostate cancer and sarcoma. While chromatin regulators are well known for their roles in development and lineage specification, their recurrent dysregulation in cancer has revealed previously unrecognized mechanisms central to tumorigenesis. A major goal of our research is to define these mechanisms and uncover new therapeutic vulnerabilities that can be translated into improved treatments for patients.

Our laboratory uses a multidisciplinary approach at the interface of cancer epigenetics, transcriptional regulation, and genome biology to study these processes. We are particularly interested in how oncogenic transcription factors and chromatin-associated proteins cooperate to establish enhancer landscapes and transcriptional programs that sustain malignant cell identity. Current work in the lab focuses on enhancer reprogramming, transcriptional addiction, epigenetic plasticity, metabolism-epigenetics crosstalk, DNA damage and R-loop biology, mechanisms of therapeutic resistance, and targeted therapeutic development, including heterobifunctional degrader design and targeted protein degradation strategies aimed at eliminating oncogenic chromatin regulators. We also investigate how tumors adapt to targeted therapies and develop rational combinatorial approaches designed to suppress the survival and emergence of resistant tumor cells.

Graduate students joining the lab may work on projects spanning chromatin biology, cancer epigenetics, functional genomics, chemical biology, and translational therapeutics. Our approaches integrate CRISPR-based functional genomics, molecular and cell biology, epigenomic profiling (ChIP-seq, CUT&RUN, ATAC-seq, Hi-C), single-cell genomics, proteomics, genetically-engineered mouse (GEM) models, and therapeutic studies. We welcome students interested in combining fundamental mechanistic biology with innovative experimental and translational approaches to understand cancer and develop new therapies.

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Education & Training

PhD, Heidelberg University, 2009