Prof. Tyler E Jacks

The Jacks Laboratory is interested in the genetic events that contribute to the development of cancer. The focus of the research is a series of mouse strains engineered to carry mutations in genes known to be involved in human cancer. Using conventional and conditional loss-of-function and gain-of-function mutations in various tumor suppressor genes as well as the K-ras oncogene, we have constructed mouse models of non small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, astrocytoma, endometroid ovarian cancer, colon cancer, soft tissue sarcoma, retinoblastoma, and tumors of the peripheral nervous system. We also study the effects of these mutations on normal embryonic development and use cells derived from mutant animals to study the function of these genes in cell culture models.