The focus of the laboratory is on signal transduction by surface receptors regulating growth and differentiation of normal and malignant cells, with particular emphasis on breast and prostate cancer. The long term goal of the laboratory is to develop anti-cancer therapeutic strategies based on insight into growth signaling pathways. As a principal signal transduction model we concentrate on the molecular aspects of prolactin receptor coupling to protein kinases and transcription factors.
Studies employ cell culture, organ cultures of tissue explants and transgenic mice.
The laboratory also has an interest in cytokine signal transduction in lymphoid cells due to overlapping signaling pathways between interleukins and prolactin, work that has implications for cell-mediated immune function and lymphomas. Activation of receptor-associated tyrosine kinase JAK2 by prolactin. JAK2 activation and cell proliferation induced by antibody-mediated prolactin receptor dimerization. Molecular cloning of rat JAK2, a protein tyrosine kinase. Erwin RA, Kirken RA, Malabarba MG, Farrar WL, Rui H. Prolactin activates RAS via signalling proteins SHC, growth factor receptor bound 2, and son of sevenless.