Welcome to the Mann Lab

 

We study how changes in RNA expression, splicing and stability promote cancer progression and metastasis in GI cancers.

 

Using Sleeping Beauty (SB) insertional mutagenesis as a gene discovery tool, we identified RNA binding proteins that are functionally deregulated in a mouse model of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma or PDAC, a highly metastatic and therapy-refractory cancer. These RNA binding proteins, or RBPs, are also deregulated in patients, and several are involved in splicing regulation of pre-mRNA transcripts. Splicing deregulation is a cancer hallmark and is associated with cancer progression and therapy resistance.

Our research aims to define how RBPs are deregulated during PDAC progression and how alternatively spliced transcripts promote metastatic programs in PDAC and other GI cancers, including colorectal. We employ multi-disciplinary approaches to dissect the function of novel splicing events and the protein isoforms they encode. The goal of our research is to identify new therapeutic targets to better treat patients with advanced GI cancers.