Cancer Epigenetics and Nuclear Dynamics (CEND) Research Program

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ABSTRACT – CANCER EPIGENETICS AND NUCLEAR DYNAMICS Cancer Epigenetics and Nuclear Dynamics (CEND) is a new basic science research program in the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center (LCC) that emerged after the re-organization of the basic science programs in 2015. The goals of the CEND program are to understand how the nucleus is structurally organized and functionally regulated in cancer cells as compared to non-transformed cells, and to accelerate translation of basic discoveries in cancer epigenetics and gene regulation to develop new therapeutic and diagnostic applications. With this focus, CEND brings together faculty from the former Cancer Cell Biology and Signal Transduction Programs plus six new LCC members. These faculty have a broad range of expertise, and they use diverse model systems, ranging from yeast, Drosophila and C. elegans to mouse models and primary human malignant cells. The aims of CEND are to: 1. Understand how genome organization changes during tumorigenesis and whether organizational changes contribute to tumor progression. 2. Understand how epigenetic regulation changes during tumorigenesis. 3. Understand how non-coding RNAs affect tumorigenesis. 4. Understand the relationship between transcription factors and cancer. The Program is led by Richard Carthew, PhD, Professor of Molecular Biosciences at the College of Arts and Sciences and Debabrata Chakravarti, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology at the Feinberg School of Medicine. Both leaders have held program leadership positions in LCC prior to this latest funding cycle. CEND membership comprises 29 faculty from 9 departments and 2 schools. Current cancer-relevant peer-reviewed direct funding is $8,175,046, with $2,670,481 from NCI and $5,504,565 in funding from other NIH institutes and peer review sources. There have been 375 cancer-relevant publications since last competing CCSG review. Of these, 17% of publications arose from intra-programmatic collaborations, 39% arose from inter-programmatic collaborations, and 64% arose from collaborations with other cancer centers. 114 (30%) were high impact (>9) publications. Thus, CEND members effectively collaborate within and outside of the program. Another priority for CEND is to promote interactions between program members and clinical/translational researchers in order to harness basic discoveries to develop new therapeutic and diagnostic applications. CEND thus adds significant value to the cancer center by providing a conceptually renewed and focused framework for promoting clinical translation of basic discoveries.