Viswanathan Lab
Principal Investigator: Srinivas Raghavan Viswanathan
Institution: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, MA)
Primary Subfield: Molecular & Cell Bio
Recruitment Status: ✅ Hiring Postdocs
Research Focus
PROJECT SUMMARY Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is one of the top ten most common cancers worldwide. RCCs are highly heterogeneous, with multiple distinct histological subtypes. One aggressive subtype, translocation renal cell carcinoma (tRCC), is driven by a gene fusion involving a transcription factor in the MiT/TFE gene family, most commonly TFE3. Currently, there are no approved therapies specifically targeting tRCC, and existing RCC treatments show only modest response rates in tRCC. Discovery of new molecular targets in tRCC is therefore a pressing and unmet medical need. Our prior work has identified CDH17, a cell surface cadherin protein activated by the TFE3 translocation, as being highly and selectively expressed in tRCC. Cell-surface proteins overexpressed in a cancer-selective fashion are attractive therapeutic targets, and T cell redirection therapy towards these antigens has proven effective in several cancer types. In preliminary studies, we have generated a diverse panel of fully human monoclonal binders targeting multiple extracellular epitopes of CDH17. In this project, we will explore the hypothesis that CDH17, as a downstream effector of the driver fusion in tRCC, ca…
Active NIH Awards
- 1R01CA302918-01A1: From biology to therapy: mechanism-informed targeting in translocation renal cell carcinoma (2026)
- 5R21CA296230-02: Targeting the CDK4/6 pathway in MiT/TFE-translocation renal cell carcinoma (2026)
- 5U01CA269505-04: Regulation of androgen receptor signaling in prostate cancer by protein arginine methylation (2026)
- 5R01CA279044-04: Molecular mechanisms and therapeutic targeting of activated NRF2 signaling in MiT/TFE translocation renal cell carcinoma (2026)
- 5U01CA269505-03: Regulation of androgen receptor signaling in prostate cancer by protein arginine methylation (2025)
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