Research
Drug resistance of tumor cells is the cause of treatment failure for most human cancers.  Acquired resistance was observed in the very first trial of a chemotherapeutic in 1942.  Since that time, vast improvements in chemotherapy- including novel drugs, combination therapies, reduced toxicity, and highly targeted treatments- have extended the lives of many cancer patients.  Yet drug resistance remains a major scientific and clinical challenge in the treatment of human cancer. 
     
​Tumor cell populations are characterized by enormous heterogeneity and plasticity. This variation contributes to disease progression and response to therapy, although the mechanisms are not yet well understood.  To address these challenges, we are developing novel technologies and experimental systems rooted in the tools of systems and synthetic biology and bioengineering. 
Lab News 
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4/2020    Congratulations to Kaitlyn on the defense of her PhD!!  More than 70 colleagues from across the US joined us for her virtual thesis seminar.  

2/14/2020 Amy receives tenure and will be promoted to Associate Professor (effective 9/2020)!  
 
12/2019 Congratulations to Grant Howard on the successful defense of his PhD!!! 

11/2019 Amy presented at the NCI/NIH Innovative Molecular Analysis (iMAT) program PI meeting. Fun to attend with other UT BME faculty, Drs Jiang and Zoldan!
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10/2019 Eric's paper with the UT Waggonner Center reports on the first single cell analysis of gene expression changes in the brains of individuals with alcoholism. This has been a great collaborative team! 
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09/2019 We're excited to share a preprint of our collaborative study with DFCI using COLBERT barcodes to track CLL cells responding to chemotherapy. 
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08/2019 Amy gave an invited presentation on "Functionalized barcodes to reveal evolutionary clonal dynamics" at the Next-Generation Genomics meeting organized by Nature Conferences at NYU.  

08/2019 Congratulations to Dr. Aziz Al'Khafaji for passing his thesis defense!  We wish him well as he heads to the Broad Institute for a postdoc position. 
 
08/2019  Congrats to Daylin for passing his BME qualifying exam! 
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06/2019 We welcome PhD student Andrea (Didi) to the lab!