Jonathan Kelber, PhD

Education:

BS, Cal Poly Pomona
Ph.D., University of California San Diego

Major area of research:

There is a strong correlation between solid tumor progression and poor patient survival. Many signaling pathways and molecular/cellular mechanisms that control normal tissue homeostasis are dysregulated in cancer. Our group aims to identify and understand factors that regulate cancer metastasis, therapy resistance and tumor microenvironment diversity, and whether these factors may also control tissue repair.

Biography:

Jonathan Kelber received his BS/MS in chemistry from Cal Poly Pomona, where he conducted research in biophysics under the mentoring of Dr. Patrick Mobley. He received a PhD in biochemistry from UCSD and studied TGFbeta signaling with Wylie Vale at the Salk Institute. He completed an NIH-IRACDA postdoctoral fellowship with Richard Klemke at UCSD and identified the PEAK1 pseudokinase as a driver of cancer progression. He is an incoming associate professor of biology at Baylor University and directs the NIH-funded Developmental Oncogene Laboratory that aims to understand mechanisms controlling cell state plasticity and proliferation during cancer progression and tissue regeneration. He was a 2013 ASBMB grant writing scholar, a 2014 ASCB-MAC FRED program participant, a 2017 ASCB-MAC visiting professor with Joan Brugge's group at the Harvard Medical School Ludwig Center, the 2019/20 US-UK Fulbright-CRUK fellow with Martin Humphries' group at the University of Manchester and the 2021 CSUPERB Faculty Research Award recipient. He serves as a Member of the ASCB MAC and a member of the NIH Tumor Evolution Heterogeneity and Metastasis (TEHM) study section. He enjoys spending time with family/friends, playing music, serving his church community and playing sports.