College of Pharmacy
Twin Cities
This laboratory’s main research focus is translational pharmacogenomics with particular interest in the pharmacogenomics of anti-cancer agents. By systematically evaluating the human genome and its relationships to drug response and toxicity, the lab's goal is to develop clinically useful models that predict risks for adverse drug reactions and non-response prior to administration of chemotherapy. Specifically, the theme of this research evolved around the idea of cell-based pharmacogenomics, which utilizes in vitro models for biomarker discovery and prediction model construction, followed by in vivo validation. The researchers routinely use cell lines (derived from healthy and disease individuals as well as commercially available cancer cell lines) and clinical samples to discover and functionally characterize genetic variation and gene, microRNA (miRNA), and long non-coding RNA expression for their roles in drug sensitivity. They also aim to build pre-clinical computational models that utilize large-scale genomic and transcriptomic data to decipher tumor heterogeneity and drug resistance in advanced cancers.
In 2023 the group developed an algorithm that integrates bulk and single-cell RNA-seq data to predict drug efficacy at an individual-cell level. They aim to collect prostate cancers, sarcomas, breast cancers, and other revelant cancer scRNA-seq data to generate drug candidates targeting therapy resistance. They are also conducting scRNA-seq analysis to depict tumor heterogeneity and model drug combination efficacy in a tumor.