TBEL Administrative Core

Project Summary/Abstract: The mission of the Administration Core is to ensure that the individual Research Projects, and the Research Core combine with synergy beyond their individual parts, to contribute to the TBEL Program creating strength beyond the individual Centers, to integrate with the NCI and the cancer research community. The Administrative Core provides the infrastructure essential for this mission. The Core will supervise a multi-component research program encompassing two basic science and one translational projects, and utilizing diverse data collection and analysis modalities. To foster synergy, the Core will be the primary contact for internal activities including logistical and organizational activities, scientific and administrative activities, and collaborative project solicitation, review, funding, and evaluation. To embed our proposed Center within the TBEL Program and the broader cancer research community, this Core will also be the primary contact for external interactions with the NCI, other TBEL Centers, the Coordinating and Data Management Center (CDMC), and external cancer researchers. The Core Leaders, Drs. De Marzo and Yegnasubramanian, have been active collaborators for 19 years, have joint funding on the NCI SPORE grant as well as the NCI MCL grant for the past 6 years and are co-authors on 50 peer-reviewed primary publications and 16 review articles. Drs. De Marzo and Yegnasubramanian are also embedded in internal and external research networks that support their roles. In addition, they have co-mentored several graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, often serving on their fellow graduate student's thesis committees. They have worked together extensively on the molecular pathology and genomics of prostate cancer over the last 10 years, including leading all the RNAseq and whole genomic sequencing efforts for JHU the NCI MCL-U01 projects, including the pre-clinical atlas pilot. Also, together they have worked extensively on the molecular and cellular biology of prostate precursor lesions , together finding partial DNA methylation of GSTP1 in high grade PIN lesions and PIA; a finding directly relevant to the current proposal. Finally, they have worked together extensively, with Dr. Bieberich, on the molecular pathology and genomics of mouse models of prostatic inflammation driven neoplasia and of aggressive versus indolent prostate cancer, and with Dr. Pienta in all administrative aspects and tumor microenvironment studies related to the NCI MCL-U01 Program.