Discern disease mechanisms
Novel therapies for leukemia and kidney diseases are under investigation in the laboratories of two researchers in the School of Medicine at Amarillo.
Zonghan Dai, Ph.D., and Yunxia Tao, Ph.D., husband and wife, share a common approach to finding new treatment options. Their efforts are focused on the mechanisms that cause the respective diseases.
Dai’s research concentrates on illuminating the mechanism associated with metastasis, the ability of a cancer cell to spread from its site of origin to other sites in the body. Specifically, his research focuses on the role of Bcr-Abl, an oncoprotein responsible for more than 95 percent of human chronic myelogenous leukemia and about 20 percent of human acute lymphocytic leukemia. Dai is investigating how cells expressing this oncoprotein override the normal controls and metastasize, inducing the leukemia.
Meanwhile, Tao is studying the mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of kidney diseases, in particular, polycystic kidney disease and von Hippel-Lindau kidney tumor. Through molecular biology approaches as well as cell culture and animal models, Tao strives to understand how the dysregulated cell growth and cell death contribute to the development and progression of these diseases.
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Yunxia Tao, Ph.D., assistant professor, and Zonghan Dai, Ph.D., associate professor, and have R01 and K01 NIH funding, respectively, totaling almost $2 million.