Several labs at Cold Spring Harbor continue to study apoptosis. Because apoptosis is a natural defense against cancer and causes the death of cells with serious genetic defects, it has become clear that the deregulation of apoptosis contributes to cancer. Yuri Lazebnik's lab is studying the molecular machinery that effects apoptosis and the signals that trigger it. Yuri is following up on the observation that expression of certain oncogenes can either induce apoptosis or sensitize cells to the stimuli that cause apoptosis. It intrigues him that some of the cellular events that cause cancer may also be used to kill cancer cells.
All cells have the apoptotic machinery, but healthy cells lack the signals to trigger it.
Oncogene expression naturally generates a signal that can activate apoptosis. When this signal is interrupted and fails to reach the apoptotic machinery, cancer cells can survive and become resistant to chemotherapeutic drugs. Yuri's plan is to develop a way to recouple the oncogenic signal and the apoptotic machinery in order to kill the otherwise apoptosis-resistant cells. To understand the molecular mechanisms that link oncogene-induced signals and the apoptotic machinery, Yuri studies caspases. Caspases are activated at the onset of apoptosis and they cause cell death by cleaving several proteins in a coordinated manner.