主讲人：杨秀伟博士

时  间：2013-12-13 上午9:30

地  点：图书馆406多功能报告厅

报告人介绍：

杨秀伟博士现就职于肯塔基大学分子与生物医学部，副教授，1985年毕业于我校，1994年在加拿大马尼托巴大学获得硕博学位。

研究领域：

Human cancer development and progression are strongly influenced by tumor cell interaction with their neighboring microenvironment. His research largely focuses on understanding how such seed and soil type of interaction is regulated by a set of cell surface receptors for extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, named as integrins, and their associated protein complexes. Their recent studies have concentrated on elucidating the roles of laminin-binding (LB) integrins (a3b1, a6b1, a6b4 and a7b1) and their signaling cross-talk with multiple oncogenic pathways in human breast and skin cancers. Clinically, it is evident that expression of LB integrins, along with their mater regulator, CD151, which is a  member of the tetraspanin protein family, are closely associated with high-grade tumors and poor clinical outcomes across a broad spectrum of human epithelia-origin cancer. Also, extensive experimental analyses have illustrated that disruption of CD151 or LB integrins profoundly inhibits tumor cell adhesion, motility, invasion and survival.  Targeted deletion of CD151 severely impairs tumor initiation and metastatic progression in multiple mouse tumor models. Moreover, CD151-integrin complexes appear to promote malignant behaviors or survival of tumor cells by cross-talking with receptor tyrosine kinases (e.g., EGFR and ErbB2), and activating focal adhesion kinase (FAK), Src family kinases (Src and Lck), and small GTPases (Rac1 and RhoA). Based on these findings, the ongoing research in my laboratory attempts to delineate the mechanisms underlying CD151-LB integrin complexes-mediated tumor dissemination and metastasis in several types of human epithelia-origin cancers. The main focus of  these studies is to understand how such protein complexes  drive carcinoma cells to cross basement membrane, traffic through lymphatic or blood stream (intravasation and extravasation), and eventually colonize at secondary sites. Meanwhile, They are interested in exploring  ECM-tetraspanin-integrin complexes as biomarkers or therapeutic targets for a variety of human solid tumors. In the long run,  their aim is to develop secreted protein-  or cell surface molecule-based monoclonal antibodies as potential  therapeutic strategies for overcoming the malignancy of metastatic tumors. They hope our research will eventually lead to the discovery of novel cures for advanced-stage human cancer.

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