Principal investigator
Dr. Brian Van Tine
Brian Andrew Van Tine, M.D., Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, where he is the Sarcoma Program Director at the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center. Dr. Van Tine received his Bachelors of Science degree from the Departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Arizona in 1995. Dr. Van Tine completed his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2005. His thesis research mainly focused on the role of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) in the development of cervical cancer with Profs. Louis T. Chow and Thomas R. Broker. After completing his M.D., Ph.D., Dr. Van Tine came to Washington University in St. Louis/Barnes Jewish Hospital where he did his Internal Medicine Residency and Medical Oncology Fellowship. He joined the laboratories of James J.D. Hsieh, M.D., Ph.D. and then Matthew Ellis, M.B., B.Chir., Ph.D., where he pursued his postdoctoral fellowship studying mouse genetics and genomics and tumor xenografting while clinically specializing in the treatment of sarcoma. His laboratory is dedicated to understanding the metabolism of sarcoma, and has recently developed a duel metabolic therapy for the treatment of complex cytogenetic sarcomas based on the exploitation of argininosuccinate synthetase 1 deficiency and glutaminase inhibition.
bvantine@wustl.edu
Siteman Cancer Center Physician Profile
Washington University Faculty Profile
Laboratory Manager
William Ehrhardt December 2020-Present
B.S., M.S. – Missouri State University
wehrhardt@wustl.edu
Post-doctoral fellows
Dr. Prashanta Panda
PhD – National Institute of Technology Rourkela, India, 2017
Postdoctoral Research Fellow – University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, 2018-2019
Dr. Panda is a post-doctoral fellow in the Van Tine lab. After completing his Ph.D studying the role of autophagy in cancer at NIT Rourkela in India he joined as Postdoctoral Research Scholar at University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, where he studied role of autophagy in neurodegenerative disorders. Currently he is researching the involvement of autophagy towards manipulation of glutamine addicted sarcoma.
prashantakpanda@ wustl.edu
Graduate students
Lenny Rogers
Lenny is a 4th year graduate student in the Molecular Cell Biology program of the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences. Lenny’s research focuses on ASS1-deficient sarcomas. These cancers lack argininosuccinate synthetase 1 (ASS1) and consequently cannot synthesize the amino acid arginine, relying on extracellular arginine for survival. The enzymatic drug PEGylated arginine deiminase (ADI-PEG20) breaks down extracellular arginine, causing these cells to starve. ADI-PEG20 also causes many metabolic changes, and Lenny studies these changes to discover effective combination therapies to kill ASS1-deficient cells before they can gain resistance to ADI-PEG20.
lrogers@wustl.edu
Caitlyn Brashears
Caitlyn is a 4th year graduate student in the medical science training program (MSTP). My primary project relates to malic enzyme 1 (ME-1). Malic enzyme 1 is one of three malic enzyme isoforms that catalyzes the oxidative decarboxylation of malate to generate pyruvate and NADPH. The NADPH generated by ME-1 is utilized as a reducing agent in reductive biosynthesis and recycling of cellular antioxidant systems. ME-1 expression is altered in many cancer subtypes, resulting in diverse metabolic phenotypes. I am currently investigating the effect of aberrant ME-1 expression on cellular metabolism and redox homeostasis in Synovial Sarcoma.
cbrashears@wustl.edu