Tohru Yamada
University of Illinois Chicago, IL·Pharmacology
Some tumors resist treatment less because the drugs are weak than because the drugs cannot get where they are needed. Pediatric high-grade gliomas, the leading cause of cancer death in children and adolescents, have no standard chemotherapy at all.
- Fields
Pharmacology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
pediatric high-grade glioma
pHGG
glioblastoma
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Mar 2031
What they work on
- Determine the pharmacological activity of AmiR20-p28, an antisense RNA against the cancer-promoting microRNA miR20a joined to the cell-penetrating peptide p28, in cell and mouse models of pediatric glioblastoma and diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma.
- Establish biomarkers, pharmacokinetics, and toxicity for AmiR20-p28, including circulating miR20a in blood as a candidate readout, using blinded experiments in pediatric high-grade glioma models.
- Test whether E. coli G3/10 probiotic bacteria carrying a hypoxia-inducible genetic switch express the cancer-killing cupredoxin proteins azurin or rusticyanin selectively in the oxygen-starved regions of triple-negative breast tumors in mice.
- Evaluate a bi-directional combination in which paclitaxel and doxorubicin attack well-perfused outer tumor regions while engineered G3/10 bacteria kill cells in the hypoxic tumor core.
More about the research
The oxygen-starved interior of a solid breast tumor is similarly out of reach, since drugs such as paclitaxel and doxorubicin work well in normal oxygen but poorly where perfusion is low, oxygen is scarce, and acid builds up. Both projects in this lab build delivery vehicles that home to these inaccessible compartments and release a cancer-killing payload there, one using a tumor-penetrating peptide carrying an RNA drug to the brain, the other using engineered probiotic bacteria that naturally accumulate in low-oxygen tumor cores.
Why it matters
Children with high-grade gliomas currently have no curative chemotherapy, and the project's peptide-linked antisense RNA could become both a treatment candidate and a blood-based biomarker through circulating miR20a. For patients with triple-negative breast cancer, probiotic bacteria delivering cancer-killing proteins into oxygen-starved tumor regions could reach cells that chemotherapy leaves behind, addressing a part of the tumor linked to poor prognosis.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Dolores Hambardzumyan
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Microbiology & Immunology
Map how glioblastoma subtype and location shape monocyte and neutrophil infiltration, using single-cell RNA sequencing, spatial multiomics and multiplex flow cytometry in mice carrying human tumor-driving mutations.
Stefanie Galban
University of Michigan, MI·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how ALDH1A3 and ALDH2, enzymes marking cancer stem cells, are controlled by the H3 K27M histone mutation and by IL1β from microglia, using isogenic DIPG models in vitro and in vivo.
Dan Shu
Ohio State University, OH·Biomedical Engineering
Build and evaluate exosome–RNA nanoparticle complexes carrying TNBC-targeting ligands, including RNA aptamers against EGFR, CD133, CD44 or nAHRs and the chemical ligand methotrexate, together with tumor-suppressing siRNA and miRNA cargo.
The school
University of Illinois Chicago: 42 labs on PI Pages, $532M a year on research, 359 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.