Benjamin Spike
University of Utah, UT·Biology
Tumors are made of many different kinds of cells, and even a small group of them can survive treatment, lie dormant, spread or cause relapse. Cancer cells can also switch back and forth between states, a flexibility called plasticity that likely helps this happen.
- Fields
Biology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Genetics
- Topics
breast cancer
metastasis
cell plasticity
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2030
What they work on
- Track how CRIPTO (CR1) drives cell state changes at different stages of breast cancer metastasis, using mouse transplant models with patient-derived cancer cells, bioengineered systems and single-cell RNA sequencing.
- Test whether blocking CR1 with the engineered peptide A4Fc reduces aggressive breast cancer traits such as stress survival, fibrosis and metastasis in mouse transplant models.
- Determine how CR1 signaling depends on stress-related upstream and downstream partners, including newly identified interacting proteins, using multicellular culture systems.
- Map how CR1 coordinates gene activity changes between breast cancer cells and neighboring fibroblasts through cellular crosstalk, measured at single-cell resolution.
More about the research
Yet few treatments target the molecules that control plasticity. This project examines CRIPTO (also called CR1), a protein found on the surface of cells or released from them, normally active in stem cells and embryos, as a key driver of plasticity in breast cancer.
Why it matters
Patients with breast cancer often relapse or develop metastasis because a few adaptable cells survive treatment. By mapping how CRIPTO drives this adaptability, the work could set the stage for clinical studies of CRIPTO-blocking drugs such as A4Fc, with new targets, readouts and single-cell biomarkers to judge whether such treatments are working.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jing Yang
University of California-San Diego, CA·Biochemistry
Determine how the Hippo pathway, through the LATS1/2 kinases, controls transcription of ESR1, the main estrogen receptor gene, in breast cells and what ESR1 contributes to Hippo biology in breast tissue.
Nina Steele
University of Cincinnati, OH·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Generate single-cell RNA sequencing data, which measure gene activity in individual cells, from pancreatic tumors of 75 Black African American and 75 White patients to expand the diversity of human pancreatic cancer atlases.
Lalita Shevde
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Medicine & Clinical Research
Test whether blocking abnormally activated Hedgehog signaling reduces the invasive and metastasis-prone behavior of Merlin-deficient mammary tumors, using mammary-specific Nf2-knockout mouse tumors and tumor-derived organoids.
The school
University of Utah: 58 labs on PI Pages, $789M a year on research, 366 research doctorates a year.
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