Lauren Colbert
Assistant Professor
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Department of Radiation Oncology
The Colbert Lab is a vibrant and collaborative patient-oriented translational research program with a focus on rigorous biostatistical and computational approaches to developing predictive, prognostic and targetable biomarkers of chemoradiation response that can personalize treatment for HPV-related gynecologic malignancies. These cancers include cervical, vaginal and vulvar cancers. We have extensive experience in the human microbiome, including examining the role of the tumor and gut microbiome in immune response to cancer therapy, including bacterial and tumor antigen recognition and response by the immune system during and after chemoradiation therapy. We have a particular interest in Lactobacillus species in the vaginal microbiome, and how these species affect dysplasia and cancer. Additionally, we continue to develop novel computational approaches to identifying and integrating biomarkers from tumor whole exome sequencing and other genomic data, from T-cell repertoire profiling and from metagenome and functional assembly of microbial shotgun sequencing data. Students in our lab may pursue either computational projects or wet-lab based projects, but all students can expect to develop skills in coding in R, Python and microbiome-specific tools such as QIIME2 and phyloseq.
Potential Rotation Projects
· Studying antigen similarity between common Lactobacillus species and HPV-related tumor antigens
· Performing and optimizing metagenome assembly and functional assembly of cervical microbial community samples
· Performing tumor neoantigen prediction from whole exome sequencing data
· Studying antigen homology between HPV antigens, tumor neoantigens and HPV antigens
· Studying the expansion of clonal and subclonal cancer mutations during chemoradiation to identify markers of radiation resistance
· Testing targeting anti-cancer agents in cervical cancer cell line or organoid models
· Studying the effect of Lactobacillus metabolites on cancer cell growth and survival
Education & Training
MD, MSCR, Emory University School of Medicine, 2014