2004 Individual Investigator Award Recipient — Wael El Shamy, PhD
Project Summary
In some families, ovarian cancer is caused by the inaction of the tumor-suppressor gene, BRCA1. Dr. El Shamy has has discovered a second protein produced at the BRCA1 gene location, named IRIS, the function of which is not known. But Dr. El Shamy believes IRIS plays an opposite role in the life of ovarian cells, stimulating the growth and dispersion of these cells. Dr. El Shamy has found that IRIS over-expression in normal ovarian epithelial cells leads to dramatic down-regulation in the expression of the ovarian tumor suppressor, Disabled-2 (Dab-2), causing cancer growth and spread. In this project, Dr. El Shamy will investigate the role of IRIS in laboratory cells and in ovarian cancer tissue from women treated in the clinic to determine when IRIS is active, in which cancers IRIS is active, and the consequences of IRIS. IRIS may be a dangerous cancer-causing gene, and could be the target of future treatments of ovarian and breast cancers.
Bio
Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology and Pathlogy Director, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics Program PhD, Molecular Neurobiology, 1998, The Royal Karolinska for Medical Research, Stockholm, Sweden Postdoc, Cancer Biology, 1999-2002, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, Instructor 2002-06, Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, Research interests- Translational Research in breast and ovarian cancer
- Molecular biology study of BRCA1-IRIS and Geminin in breast and ovarian cancer metastases
- Development of drugs and/or drug regimens to target breast and ovarian cancer metastases
- BRCA1-IRIS inactivation overcomes paclitaxel resistance in triple negative breast cancers. Blanchard Z, Paul BT, Craft B, ElShamy WM. Breast Cancer Res. 2015 Jan 13;17(1):5.
- Geminin overexpression promotes imatinib sensitive breast cancer: a novel treatment approach for aggressive breast cancers, including a subset of triple negative. Blanchard Z, Mullins N, Ellipeddi P, Lage JM, McKinney S, El-Etriby R, Zhang X, Isokpehi R, Hernandez B, Elshamy WM. PLoS One. 2014 Apr 30;9(4):e95663.
- BRCA1-IRIS inactivation sensitizes ovarian cancer cells to Cisplatin, in vivo. Paul B, Blanchard Z, Ridgway M, ElShamy WM. Oncogene 2014, Aug. 2014
- Overview: Cellular plasticity, cancer stem cells and metastasis. ElShamy WM, Duhe RJ. Cancer Lett.2013 Nov 28; 341(1):2-8. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2013.06.020. Review.
- BRCA1-IRIS overexpression promotes formation of aggressive breast cancers. Shimizu Y, Luk H, Horio D, Miron P, Griswold M, Iglehart D, Hernandez B, Killeen J, ElShamy WM. PLoS One. 2012;7(4):e34102. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0034102. Epub 2012 Apr 12. PMID: 22511931