Welcome to the Land Lab

Cancer cells: blue is cell nucleus
and yellow represents the garbage recycling process
that occurs as cancer grows.

Cooperation of oncogenic mutations in the control of malignancy:

• Understand the molecular basis for oncogene cooperation
• Identify unique features of gene networks in cancer cells vs. normal cells
• Exploit such features of cancer cells for targeted approaches towards therapeutic intervention
• Systems biology of cancer cells

Carcinogenesis is a process driven by multiple co-operating oncogenic mutations in which features of the cancer cell phenotype, such as proliferative advantage, only emerge as a result of the interplay between these mutations. This is consistent with the notion that many divergent cancers share a limited number of disease mechanisms with common underlying signaling networks, despite the many genes implicated in the disease.

The Land laboratory has pioneered investigation of the nature and underlying principles of cancer gene cooperation originating with the discovery that multiple oncogenic mutations are required for malignant cell transformation. Using a wide variety of experimental approaches, including genomics and systems biology, the laboratory has demonstrated that the cooperation of cancer-promoting genetic lesions is strongly reflected by synergistic modulation in signaling and the gene networks of malignant cells.