Cancer cells are exposed to myriad stresses in the tumor microenvironment, including starvation, hypoxia, acidification, chemotherapy, among other potential insults. Thus, cancer cells are under strong selective pressure to evolve stress tolerance mechanisms to prevent their proteostatic collapse. Such coping strategies are the Achilles’ heel of cancer, and constitute promising targets for therapeutic intervention. In previous work, I have identified so-called biomolecular condensates—membraneless assemblies of proteins and nucleic acids that form via phase separation—as key stress-responsive compartments that allow cells to sense and respond to the environment. Unsurprisingly, I also found ...

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Cancer cells are exposed to myriad stresses in the tumor microenvironment, including starvation, hypoxia, acidification, chemotherapy, among other potential insults. Thus, cancer cells are under strong selective pressure to evolve stress tolerance mechanisms to prevent their proteostatic collapse. Such coping strategies are the Achilles’ heel of cancer and constitute promising targets for therapeutic intervention. In previous work, I have identified so-called biomolecular condensates—membraneless assemblies of proteins and nucleic acids that form via phase separation—as key stress-responsive compartments that allow cells to sense and respond to the environment. Unsurprisingly, I also found that pathogenic disruptions of condensates, such as stress granules and nucleoli, were implicated in age-related diseases. Moreover, based on my proteomics screens, I unexpectedly found evidence that phase separation is a common feature of cell cycle regulators, hinting at an involvement of this process in the etiology of cancer. The goal of my lab is to further untangle the role of biomolecular condensates in stress signaling and resilience in the tumor microenvironment. Using innovative synthetic biology tools and proteomics methods that I developed previously, we will come up with novel ways to (1) identify, (2) dissect, (3) target condensates and phase separating proteins implicated in cancer biology. This workflow will allow us to uncover novel aspects of tumor stress biology and find new targets for cancer treatment. Our work will be specifically focused on the study of brain cancers, hereby maximally benefiting from the available expertise and resources at the Neuroscience Research Institute at Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Children’s Hospital. Yet, these same approaches will find applications in the broad field of cancer biology and it would be an honor and immense opportunity for me to pursue this with others at the Texas Medical Center in the years to come.

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