The Biology Department presents
Identifying and Targeting Coding/Non-Coding Molecular Switches Regulating Drug Resistance and Metastasis in Breast Cancer
Date: April 18, 2018
Time: 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Venue: SBASSE Dean’s Smart Lab, 4th floor, LUMS
Guest Speaker: Dr. Umar Raza
Host: Dr. Amir Faisal
About the Talk
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer-associated deaths among woman worldwide, and therapy resistance and metastasis are among major hallmarks of cancer. Using RNA-seq profiling of in vivo developed a therapy-resistant model of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), I identified lysyl oxidase (LOX) as an important biomarker of therapy resistance in TNBC which was further shown to promote therapy resistance by positively regulating integrin signalling at downstream. In the second project, I identified miR-644a as a novel tumour suppressor micro RNA inhibiting both cell survival and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) whereby acting as pleiotropic therapy-sensitizer in breast cancer.
About the Speaker
Dr. Raza completed his BSc (Hons) agriculture with plant breeding and genetics major from University of Agriculture, Faisalabad in 2010. Later he got a scholarship from the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan for MS leading to PhD Programme and enrolled in Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey during fall 2012-13 session from where he completed PhD in molecular biology and genetics in September 2017. From his PhD research work, Dr. Raza has published 8 research/review articles so far.
