The Institute for Cancer and Infectious Diseases
Our Directors:
Mission
The Institute for Cancer and Infectious Diseases (ICID) seeks to understand fundamental biological insights of cancer cells and opportunistic pathogens (bacterial, viral and fungal) causing infection in immunocompromised patients, and to apply these insights to overcome these diseases through innovative strategies for detection, prevention, and therapeutic intervention.
Vision
The Institute for Cancer and Infectious Diseases will become a national and global leader for improving patient outcome through science-based personalized medicine.
Why Cancer and Infectious Diseases (ID)?
In the past decade, there have been major breakthroughs in predicting, diagnosing and treating a wide variety of cancers. Novel imaging techniques and biomarkers have greatly improved cancer diagnosis; new genetic insights help identify risk factors for disease and direct existing therapy, and new biologic drugs have transformed the landscape for therapy for certain deadly cancers. This renaissance in cancer management and understanding has been driven by innovations in genetics, genomics, immunology, proteomics, cell engineering, and biologics development. We are now entering a golden age of scientific discovery in the cancer field, as new insights confront old disease paradigms and provide opportunities to improve patient care. Yet, despite all the recent progress and promise of existing technology, we are still confronted by cancers of the breast, lung, pancreas, bone marrow, blood, cervix, prostate, bladder, and brain. Overcoming and preventing these diseases remains a major challenge.
It is understood in modern medicine that a nexus exists between the development of life-threatening infection (viral, bacterial or fungal) in a patient and disruption of normal immune function due to cancer, transplantation, premature birth, traumatic injury or burns. Successful clinical outcome requires early diagnosis and effective therapy. Diagnostics are a cornerstone of the practice of infectious diseases. Yet, they are complicated by the need to identify numerous infecting pathogens and associated drug susceptibilities. Even when properly diagnosed and treated, clinical failures arise from other key factors such as inadequate drug levels at the site of infection or emergence of drug resistance. In fact, drug resistant bacterial and fungal infections result in excessive morbidity and mortality, prolonged hospital stays, and higher healthcare costs representing a global health crisis. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at least 2 million Americans acquire serious antibiotic-resistant bacteria infections each year, resulting in 23,000 deaths and an additional $20 billion healthcare costs. Like the cancer field, recent innovations in science have carved new paths for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infection diseases.
World-Class Faculty Members
To meet its challenge, the ICID has recruited world-class faculty members with well-funded programs who possess the expertise required to advance the science underlying cancer and ID to help the ICID achieve its mission.
Key research themes for cancer and ID include:
- Why treatments fail therapy and why patients relapse after successful therapy
- Next generation cancer and ID therapies/strategies
- Optimizing existing therapies
- Novel diagnostics and biomarkers of disease
- Personalized medicine
- Epigenetics and therapy response
- Applied genomics
- Harnessing the immune system
- Patient-based drug optimization
Recruited faculty will bring a strong research foundation that involves genetics, genomics and epigenetics, immunology, pharmacology, drug resistance, diagnostics and biomarker development, disease-based imaging, pathogen and tissue banks,
animal models, bioengineering and patient registries, and clinical trials support.
The development of novel therapeutics (small molecules and biologics), diagnostics (host, pathogen) and vaccines (therapeutic and preventative) will be a major goal, along with optimized regimens to improve existing therapies.
The Institute for Cancer and Infectious Diseases
Faculty
Jason Butler, Ph.D.
Exploring the mechanisms by which vascular endothelial cells promote hematopoietic stem cell emergence, maintenance, and regeneration to develop therapeutic modalities to repair injured and aged hematopoietic systems.
Veronique Dartois, Ph.D.
Pharmacology of hard-to-cure infections by high-threat pathogens.
Thomas Dick, Ph. D
Discovery of new medicines for treatment of TB and lung disease caused by Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria.
Rena Feinman, Ph.D.
Discovery of prognostic microbiota-associated biomarkers and development of personalized microbial-based immunotherapies for cancer patients.
Robert Korngold, Ph.D.
Immunology, graft-vs-host disease, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, T cell repertoire reconstitution, immune analysis of clinical samples following immunotherapy for cancer.
Barry Kreiswirth, Ph.D.
Molecular genetics of drug resistant Gram negative and Gram positive pathogens.
Olivier Loudig, Ph.D.
Molecular biomarker discovery in biofluids and archived human tissues for early detection of breast, prostate, and lung cancer
David S. Perlin, Ph.D.
Diagnose and treat drug resistant fungal and bacterial infections in cancer, transplant and other high-risk patients.
Byungwoo Ryu, Ph.D.
Epigenome reprogramming and discovery of synthetic-lethality pathways and therapy predictive biomarkers for the treatment of cancer patients
Johannes Zakrzewski, M.D.
Cell engineering, immuno-bioengineering and drug development based on purposeful manipulation of T cell development and NF-kB activity for targeted cancer therapy.
Jenny Zilberberg, Ph.D.
Development and use of biomimetic models of the tumor microenvironment for chemosensitivity studies and discovery ofmolecular mechanisms associated with drug resistance.
