Atique Ahmed, PhD
Professor, Neurological Surgery; Feinberg School of Medicine
Research Program
Link
Cancer-Focused Research
Develop novel approaches for anti-glioma therapeutics with an interest in identifying novel therapeutic targets by understanding the tumor specific niche factor for the glioma stem cell. The recent development of the glioma stem cell (GSC) hypothesis argues that GBMs are driven by a rare subset of cells with stem cell-like properties, which include a self-renewal capacity and an ability to differentiate into all populations contained within a malignancy. An important prediction of the CSC hypothesis is that CSCs are commonly considered as cells derived from normal tissue stem cells and thus have the ability to become resistant to conventional chemo and radiotherapy. Currently we are trying to understand the heterogeneity of the cancer stem cell subpopulation by carefully characterizing the different populations of GSC compartments.