Julea Vlassakis, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University. Dr. Vlassakis earned her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Herr Lab at the University of California, Berkeley.  

Dr. Vlassakis' overarching goal is to advance the treatment of Ewing sarcoma, leukemias, brain tumors, and other pediatric/young-adult cancers caused by fusion oncoproteins and their molecular interactions. Unlike adult cancers, certain pediatric cancers have few genetic mutations and instead are driven by fusion oncoproteins with altered DNA and protein interactions. Ewing sarcoma, a pediatric and young adult cancer of bone and surrounding tissue, arises from a single chromosomal rearrangement to generate the EWS-FLI1 fusion protein.

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Julea Vlassakis, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University. Dr. Vlassakis earned her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Herr Lab at the University of California, Berkeley.  

Dr. Vlassakis' overarching goal is to advance the treatment of Ewing sarcoma, leukemias, brain tumors, and other pediatric/young-adult cancers caused by fusion oncoproteins and their molecular interactions. Unlike adult cancers, certain pediatric cancers have few genetic mutations and instead are driven by fusion oncoproteins with altered DNA and protein interactions. Ewing sarcoma, a pediatric and young adult cancer of bone and surrounding tissue, arises from a single chromosomal rearrangement to generate the EWS-FLI1 fusion protein. EWS-FLI1 levels stratify cells into proliferative and aggressively metastatic cell subpopulations. Patient outcomes remain poor for metastatic disease as treatments have been unchanged for decades: harsh combination chemotherapy, crude tumor removal surgeries and radiation therapy.

Researchers in the Vlassakis Microtechnologies Laboratory for Pediatric Oncology are motivated by imagining a future in which more patients survive Ewing sarcoma and other fusion oncoprotein-driven pediatric cancers without long-term mobility impairment, secondary cancers, and heart damage. The team engineers quantitative biochemical and biophysical tools to uncover heterogeneity in protein interactions, conformations and mechanical states that underpin tumor growth and metastasis. Thus, with novel microtechnologies on the scale of the biology they study, her team will gain insight into molecular mechanisms and uncover potential.

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