Stuart A. Aaronson, MD, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Dr. Aaronson's laboratory focuses on cancer gene discovery and function with emphasis on signaling pathways of growth factors including Wnts, PDGF, KGF (FGF-7), and HGF/scatter factor. His laboratory recently identified autocrine Wnt activation in human tumor cells of several tissue types and is studying the relationship of such tumors to stem/progenitor cells of the same tissues in which Wnt signaling helps to maintain the stem/progenitor phenotype. He is also investigating replicative senescence or permanent growth arrest, which appears to be a cell death program distinct from apoptosis, and which must be overcome to attain the immortalization of tumor cells.His laboratory recently uncovered a novel role of p53 in innate antiviral immunity, increasing the diversity of p53 functions that serve to facilitate host pro-survival mechanisms. The laboratory applies cDNA cloning technology and other functional genomic strategies to discover novel targets for cancer intervention.