Sazzad Hassan, MD, PhD

Bio

I have over 20 years of experience in medical research with research focused on human cancers and utilized mouse model systems as well as in vitro cellular and molecular studies.

Our laboratory investigates signaling pathways that control apoptosis in esophageal cancer cells. In collaboration with clinical gastroenterologist and oncologist I have been working to find a novel and more effective therapeutic strategy for esophageal cancer.

We are interested in defining novel mechanisms regarding the transition to esophageal adenocarcinoma that could provide valuable insights for molecular diagnosis and to identify new targets for drug intervention. We develop and validate novel in vitro and in-vivo model which lead us to its use in future studies on esophageal adenocarcinoma pathogenesis, progression and for the screening of therapeutic drugs.

Our goal is to establish and characterize novel in vitro and in-vivo models for screening of anticancer drugs of esophageal adenocarcinoma therapy. My extensive experience in cell culture, cancer biology and regenerative medicine is valuable asset for the project. Over the recent years we have described a network of signaling pathways that regulate survival of cancer cells and identified BAD (a BH3-only member of Bcl2 family) as a convergence node of multiple anti-apoptotic signaling pathways. We were first to demonstrate that stress hormone epinephrine protects prostate cancer cells from apoptosis via PKA/BAD signaling pathway and described the role of this signaling pathway in therapy resistance and progression of prostate tumors in vivo.