Colloquium Ruth Nussinov: Unraveling Oncogenic Mechanisms and their Linkage to Neurodevelopmental Disorders

By Ruth Nussinov, National Cancer Institute, Center for Cancer Research, USA

Over the last few years our work has aimed to reveal oncogenic mechanisms of key oncogenic proteins in the Ras signaling network, including Ras, Raf, PI3K, PTEN, and more. We aim to understand their activation mechanisms, mutations, and signaling. During the last year we have extended our work, asking how same-gene mutations can drive both cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders. This question has been puzzling. It has also been puzzling why those with neurodevelopmental disorders have a high risk of cancer. Ras, MEK, PI3K, PTEN, and SHP2 are among the oncogenic proteins that can harbor mutations that encode diseases other than cancer. My talk will describe these, and the linkage between cancer and neurodevelopmental disorders at the molecular and cellular levels.

Short CV

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