Dr. Dina Chelouche Lev

Regular Member

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Department of Cancer Biology

Research Interests:

• Soft tissue sarcoma

The goal of my laboratory is to advance the knowledge of the molecular events resulting in soft tissue sarcoma inception, progression and metastasis.  To that end a multitude of projects studying several soft tissue sarcoma histological subtypes are currently being conducted.  These studies aim to identify molecular signatures that can contribute to STS diagnosis and prognosis as well as to pre-clinically test targeted therapeutics.  While soft tissue sarcoma are relatively uncommon, the clinical sarcoma center at UTMDACC is one of the largest treatment centers for these malignancies thus enhancing the feasibility of developing a true "bed-side to bench and back again" investigational platform.

As described above studies in our laboratory focus solely on soft tissue sarcoma.  To advance current knowledge of this cohort of mesenchymal malignancies, a wide array of projects are being conducted; several examples are provided below:

• The role of beta-catenin mutations in desmoid tumor inception and progression
• Aberrant cell signaling in genetically complex soft tissue sarcoma
• miRNAs as biomarkers and therapeutic targets in liposarcoma
• Targeting post translational modifiers (e.g. PARP and HDAC enzymes) for the treatment of MPNST
• The role of INI-1 loss in Epithelioid Sarcoma growth

Selected Publications:

Torres K, Zhu QS, Bill K, Lopez G, Ghadimi M, Xie X, Young E, Liu J, Nguyen T, Bolshakov S, Belousov R, Wang S, Lahat G, Liu J, Hernandez B, Lazar A, Lev DC. Activated MET is a molecular prognosticator and potential therapeutic target for malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors. Clin Cancer Res. e-Pub 5/2011. NIHMSID: NIHMSNIHMS293403.

Peng T, Zhang P, Liu J, Nguyen T, Bolshakov S, Belousov R, Young ED, Wang X, Brewer K, López-Terrada DH, Oliveira AM, Lazar AJ, Lev D. An experimental model for the study of well differentiated and dedifferentiated liposarcoma; deregulation of targetable tyrosine kinase receptors. Lab Invest 91:392-403, 2011. PMCID: PMC3058694.

Sakharpe A, Lahat G, Gulamhusein T, Liu P, Bolshakov S, Nguyen T, Zhang P, Belousov R, Young E, Xie X, Rao P, Hornick JL, Lazar AJ, Pollock RE, Lev D. Epithelioid sarcoma and unclassified sarcoma with epithelioid features: clinicopathological variables, molecular markers, and a new experimental model. Oncologist 16:512-22, 2011.

Zhu QS, Rosenblatt K, Huang KL, Lahat G, Brobey R, Bolshakov S, Nguyen T, Ding Z, Belousov R, Bill K, Luo X, Lazar A, Dicker A, Mills GB, Hung MC, Lev D. Vimentin is a Novel AKT1 Target Mediating Motility and Invasion. Oncogene 30:457-70, 2011. PMCID: PMC3010301.

Lopez G, Torres K, Liu J, Hernandez B, Young E, Belousov R, Bolshakov S, Lazar AJ, Slopis JM, McCutcheon IE, McConkey D, Lev D. Autophagic survival in resistance to histone deacetylase inhibitors: novel strategies to treat malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors. Cancer Res 71:185-96, 2011. PMCID: PMC3064267

Lab Website

Program Affiliation:

Program in Cancer Biology

Program in Experimental Therapeutics