Principal Investigator George Daley
Project Website http://daley.med.harvard.edu/Daley_Lab_Cancer.htm
Cancer describes certain types of dysregulated cellular growth. Terms often associated with cancer include "benign" where cells grow abnormally yet by and large retain their individual appearance/function and "malignant " where abnormal cells may be very difficult to identify, bearing few characteristics of their original cell type or tissue of origin. Though the term cancer is most often associated with solid tumors, the biological underpinnings of cancer biology are entirely relevant to "liquid tumors" such as leukemias and lymphomas as all cancers are genetic, resulting from perturbations in the genes controlling normal cellular growth and development.
Modern cancer therapeutics include compounds that may efficiently target the specific genetic lesions at the root of the disease. While such targetted compounds have induced clinical remission in many patients, certain cases have proven refractory to therapy or have developed therapeutic resistance and ultimate disease relapse. Part of our research seeks to define the molecular events contributing to the development of therapeutic resistance in cancer. Such work endows both our understanding of basic cancer biology as well as contributing valuable information to next-generation drug development.