DF/HCC Program Affiliation

Cancer Cell Biology

Lab Website

SorgerLab

Research Abstract

Our lab aims to understand mechanisms controlling mammalian cell fate and that, when altered, cause cancer. We study the balance between extracellular factors that promote death and those that promote growth and survival with a focus on the spatio-temporal dynamics of receptor mediated apoptosis triggered by ligands such as TRAIL and growth-factor mediated mitogenesis trigged by EGF, insulin and insulin-like growth factors. We combine live-cell assays, multiplex-biochemistry and genetic manipulation with mathematical modeling of detailed cellular biochemistry (typically using differential equations), abstracted networks (using logical modeling) and state-phenotype relationships (using regression). Experiments are performed on cells grown in culture, knock-in and knock-out mice (of our own design) and increasingly primary human cells and tissue samples. We hope thereby to understand precisely how key signaling proteins regulate changes in cell physiology in the face of stochastic fluctuation, how signaling pathways change during oncogenic transformation and how drugs can best distinguish diseased v. normal tumors of different genotypes.

Publications

View All Publications