CRI researchers to study how metastatic cancers overcome lethal oxidative stress
Javier Garcia Bermudez, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Children’s Research Institute at UT Southwestern and of Pediatrics, is one of 67 scientists awarded a 2024 National Institutes of Health’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research grant.
Javier Garcia Bermudez, Ph.D., an assistant professor in Children’s Research Institute at UT Southwestern and of Pediatrics.
Dr. Garcia Bermudez will use his NIH Director’s New Innovator Award of $1.47 million across five years to study how highly-metastatic cancers manage to overcome both cell-intrinsic and extrinsic oxidative stress to colonize in distant organs. His lab will tackle this by developing technologies to understand how individual organelles allow cancer cells to survive oxidative stress.
The Garcia Bermudez Lab will manipulate the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), the volatile molecules driving oxidative stress in tumors, using a high-resolution optogenetic system. Researchers will apply this technique in cells and mouse models of metastasis which — coupled with functional genetics and metabolomics — will uncover targetable metabolic bottlenecks of metastasis.
“The tools and techniques we develop have the potential to revolutionize our ability to study ROS and oxidative stress and be broadly applied to any disease impacted by oxidative stress,” Dr. Garcia Bermudez said. “My lab wants to reshape our understanding of these processes not only in cancer, but across a wide range of diseases, which may pave the way for new therapeutic strategies and improved patient outcomes.”
NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program supports innovative scientists at each career stage who propose visionary and broadly impactful behavioral and biomedical research projects.
“The HRHR program champions exceptionally bold and innovative science that pushes the boundaries of biomedical and behavioral research,” said Tara A. Schwetz, Ph.D., NIH Deputy Director for Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives and Director of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, which oversees the NIH Common Fund. “The groundbreaking science pursued by these researchers is poised to have a broad impact on human health.”
About CRI
Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) is a joint venture of UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children’s Medical Center Dallas. CRI’s mission is to perform transformative biomedical research to better understand the biological basis of disease. Located in Dallas, Texas, CRI is home to interdisciplinary groups of scientists and physicians pursuing research at the interface of regenerative medicine, cancer biology and metabolism.
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