Joseph Taube, PhD
Graduate Program Director Associate Professor
Education
Postdoctoral Fellowship, MD Anderson Cancer Center
Ph.D., University of Texas Health Science Center - Houston
B.S., Baylor University
Courses Taught
- BIO 4301 Immunology
- BIO 5409 Cancer Biology
- BIO 3100/5100 - Seminars on Epigenetics, Stem Cells, or Metastasis
Research Interests
Outgrowth of disseminated metastases is the major cause of mortality in cancer patients. In the Taube lab, we are investigating the molecular pathways and cellular properties which enable primary tumor cells to metastasize.
In normal tissues, epithelial cells form a well-structured barrier using a variety of adhesion molecules. However, aberrant activation of a conserved cellular program, termed epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), facilitates the separation of epithelial cells from this tissue. When EMT occurs in epithelial tumors, the probability of metastatic dissemination is increased.
Our current work is focused on uncovering the regulatory mechanisms which facilitate EMT in both normal and cancerous settings, describing the specific targets and roles of these regulatory mechanisms and testing small molecule inhibitors of these proteins to ultimately lead to novel therapeutic strategies.
Selected Publications
- Johnson K, Hussein S, Chakraborty P, Muruganantham A, Mikhail S, Gonzalez G, Song S, Jolly M, Toneff M, Benton ML, Lin Y, Taube J CTCF Expression and Dynamic Motif Accessibility Modulates Epithelial–Mesenchymal Gene Expression. Cancers (2022), 14, 209
- Song S, Johnson KS, Lujan H, Pradhan SH, Sayes CM, Taube J. Nanoliposomal delivery of microRNA-203 suppresses migration of triple-negative breast cancer through distinct target suppression. ncRNA (2021)
- Reisenauer K, Tao Y, Das P, Song S, Svatek H, Patel S, Mikhail S, Ingros A, Sheesley P, Evidente A, Kornienko A, Romo D, Taube J. Epithelial-mesenchymal transition sensitizes breast cancer cells to cell death via the fungus-derived sesterpenoid, Ophiobolin A. Scientific Reports (2021) 11:10652