Ite Offringa
University of Southern California, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer death in the US. Its toll falls unevenly: Black/African American (B/AA) men have the highest lung cancer death rate of any group.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Genetics
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
lung cancer
lung adenocarcinoma
isoaspartylation
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Generate a mouse monoclonal antibody that recognizes only isoaspartylated ELAVL4, a damaged protein form on small cell lung cancer cells, by immunizing with a synthetic peptide and optimizing binding speed and strength.
- Test whether the anti-isoaspartyl-ELAVL4 antibody extends survival in a mouse model where lung tumors arise after deleting the Tp53 and Rb1 genes with a virus-delivered Cre enzyme.
- Test whether the AHRR variant rs35008248, carried by about a third of Black/African American individuals, is associated with lung cancer outcomes, using existing large-scale genetic data.
- Determine how the AHRR variant changes responses to tobacco smoke by inserting it into immortalized human alveolar cells with CRISPR editing, and measure how the amino acid at position 114 affects AHRR–ARNT binding.
- Identify driver mutation signatures in lung adenocarcinoma from 100 high-risk individuals and build new alveolar and tumor cell lines for 2D and 3D models.
- Test KRAS-pathway drugs called PCAIs and other targeted therapies on these lung cancer cells, including in a 3D-printed model of cancer spread to bone.
More about the research
The lab's projects ask how inherited genetic differences and tumor mutations shape lung cancer risk and treatment response. They also aim to build new tools to treat it, including an antibody therapy for small cell lung cancer.
Why it matters
Patients with small cell lung cancer urgently need better options; an antibody that targets only damaged ELAVL4 could become the basis for tumor-specific treatments, and perhaps for other cancers that trigger ELAVL4 antibodies. Clarifying how the AHRR variant and tumor mutations affect lung cancer in Black/African American people could support screening and smoking-cessation efforts. New patient-derived cell lines could help test targeted drugs in the groups at highest risk.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Full Project 4 - Lung
NIH · Sep 2018 – Aug 2028
Development of a new tool to treat small cell lung cancer
NIH · Apr 2025 – Mar 2027
Analysis of a missense SNP in the aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor gene that may disproportionately increase lung cancer risk in Black Americans
NIH · Apr 2024 – Mar 2027
Closest labs
Kwok Kin Wong
New York University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how co-mutations such as MYC, KMT2D, STK11 and PTEN change SCLC plasticity (cells' ability to switch identity) and transcriptional subtypes, using new mouse models built on TP53/RB1-mutant SCLC.
Pawel K. Mazur
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, TX·Genetics
Dissect how the enzyme CARM1 methylates the tumor-promoting transcription factor NFIB and signals through the effector protein TRIM29 in small cell lung cancer, using knock-in mice that carry a non-methylatable NFIB.
Sanchita Bhatnagar
University of California-Davis, CA·Medicine & Clinical Research
Screen TRIM37 gene variants already identified in African American women for anoikis resistance, the ability of cancer cells to survive after detaching, and compare how risk and reference alleles of TRIM37 behave biologically.
The school
University of Southern California: 47 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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