El-Kenawi Lab

The El-Kenawi Lab at Indiana University School of Medicine and the IU Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center investigates the metabolic interactions between tumor cells and the immune microenvironment. The lab focuses on how cancer cells exploit neighboring cells to scavenge nutrients and macromolecules, a "symbiotic" scavenging tactic, and how metabolic reprogramming, particularly involving cholesterol, drives resistance to hormone-based therapies in prostate, breast and ovarian cancers. Supported by National Cancer Institute and Department of Defense funding, the El-Kenawi Lab aims to uncover novel therapeutic strategies by targeting cancer metabolism and immune suppression.

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A diagram shows the interdisciplinary approaches in the lab including using samples from patients like plasma to isolate immune cells, leading to immune function analysis. Other samples are used for drug efficacy assays or to look for metabolite flux analysis and abundance.

Research Projects

Active research projects in the lab span three interconnected areas. The first examines metal ion metabolism within the tumor microenvironment, exploring how cancer and immune cells compete for and redistribute trace metals to gain a proliferative or immunosuppressive advantage. The second investigates mitochondrial dynamics during DNA damage responses, seeking to understand how shifts in mitochondrial structure and function influence cancer cell survival and immune evasion following genotoxic stress. The third project focuses on aldehyde metabolism, studying how the production and detoxification of reactive aldehydes shapes tumor progression and the surrounding immune landscape. All three projects are pursued through complementary mouse models and patient-derived ex vivo systems, enabling findings to be validated in clinically relevant contexts and accelerating their translational potential. Underpinning these studies is a high-resolution LC-MS Orbitrap metabolomics platform, which allows the lab to perform precise, untargeted and targeted metabolite profiling across complex biological samples and provides the analytical depth needed to capture the full breadth of metabolic alterations in the tumor microenvironment.

Principal Investigator

Asmaa El-Kenawi, PhD

Assistant Professor of Urology

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