Dario Carlo Altieri, M.D., is a researcher who works as director of
The Wistar Institute Cancer Center in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. In 2015, he became the CEO of
The Wistar Institute.
His research has focused on
Inhibitors of Apoptosis (IAP), a family of genes essential for proliferation and survival of cells. His work has identified
survivin
Survivin, also called baculoviral inhibitor of apoptosis repeat-containing 5 or BIRC5, is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the ''BIRC5'' gene.
Survivin is a member of the inhibitor of apoptosis (IAP) family. The survivin protein functions ...
, one of these IAP genes, is over-produced in almost every human cancer, and his team is currently studying the biology of survivin and how it could be used to develop treatments for cancer.
Altieri has also been involved in the development of
gamitrinib, a
Hsp90 inhibitor
An Hsp90 inhibitor is a substance that inhibits that activity of the Hsp90 heat shock protein. Since Hsp90 stabilizes a variety of proteins required for survival of cancer cells, these substances may have therapeutic benefit in the treatment of va ...
that was shown to disable the activity of
mitochondria
A mitochondrion (; ) is an organelle found in the Cell (biology), cells of most Eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and Fungus, fungi. Mitochondria have a double lipid bilayer, membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosi ...
in cancerous cells.
In 2013, Altieri and his team received a $1.5 million grant from the
Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to:
Current departments of defence
* Department of Defence (Australia)
* Department of National Defence (Canada)
* Department of Defence (Ireland)
* Department of National Defense (Philippin ...
to prepare the drug for human trials.
Prior to joining Wistar, Altieri was the founding chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at the
University of Massachusetts Medical School
The University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School is a public medical school in Worcester, Massachusetts. It is part of the University of Massachusetts system. It is home to three schools: the T.H. Chan School of Medicine, the Morningside Grad ...
. He also co-founded the Cancer Biology Training Consortium and the Pancreatic Cancer alliance in 2005.
Select publications
* Chae, Y. C., Angelin, A., Lisanti, S., Kossenkow, A. A., Speicher, K. D., Wang, H., Powers, J. F., Tischler, A. S., Pacak, K., Fliedner, S., Michalek, R. D., Karoly, E. D., Wallace, D. C., Languino, L. R., Speicher, D. W. and Altieri, D. C. (2013) Landscape of the mitochondrial Hsp90 metabolome in tumors.
Nature Commun. 4:2139.
* Caino, M. C., Chae, Y. C., Vaira, V., Ferrero, S., Nosotti, M., Martin, N. M.,
Weeraratna, A., O’Connell, M., Jernigan, D., Fatatis, A., Languino, L. R., Bosari, S., and Altieri, D. C. (2013) Metabolic stress regulates cytoskeletal dynamics and metastasis of cancer cells.
J. Clin. Invest. 123:2907-2920.
* Chae, Y. C., Caino, M. C., Lisanti, S., Ghosh, J. C., Dohi, T., Danial, N. N., Villanueva, J., Ferrero, S., Vaira, V., Santambrogio, L., Bosari, S., Languino, L. R., Herlyn, M., and Altieri, D. C. (2012) Control of tumor bioenergetics and survival stress signaling by mitochondrial Hsp90s.
Cancer Cell
Cancer cells are cells that divide continually, forming solid tumors or flooding the blood with abnormal cells. Cell division is a normal process used by the body for growth and repair. A parent cell divides to form two daughter cells, and these d ...
22:331-344.
* Siegelin, M. D., Dohi, T., Raskett, C. M., Orlowsky, G. M., Powers, C. M., Gilbert, C. A., Ross, A. H., Plescia, J., and Altieri, D. C. (2011) Exploiting the mitochondrial unfolded protein response for cancer therapy in mice and human cells. J. Clin. Invest. 121:1349-1360.
* Mehrotra, S., Languino, L. R., Raskett, C. M., Mercurio, A. M., Dohi, T., and Altieri, D. C. (2010) IAP regulation of metastasis. Cancer Cell. 17:53-64.
References
External links
Dr. Altieri's homepage on The Wistar Institute's website
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people
Italian healthcare chief executives
Cancer researchers
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