Vimla
Band, MD, PhD
Professor
Department of Medicine
Director, Division of Cancer Biology
Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute
To contact Dr. Band:
E-mail: v-band@northwestern.edu
Dr. Band's Website
PubMed
Reference Lookup
Research Interests:
Dr. Vimla Band’s research interest is to delineate the molecular basis
of early steps in human breast cancer. The major ongoing projects towards
this goal are: i) the elucidation of the biochemical pathways targeted by
the human papilloma virus type 16 E6 oncogene, which is capable of inducing
the immortalization of mammary epithelial cells without any cooperating oncogene.
These studies employ mutagenesis of E6, analyses of their interaction with
known tumor suppressor proteins, such as p53, and identification of novel
E6-associated cellular proteins as potentially novel tumor suppressors; ii)
identification of novel growth- and cell cycle-related genes in breast cells
as potential targets of early oncogenesis. The ultimate goal of these studies
is to identify genetic markers for early diagnosis of human breast cancer.
Recently, several important findings have emerged from Dr. Band’s laboratory.
These include the isolation of a novel protein, NES1 that is expressed in
normal and benign breast cells but not in infiltrating ductal carcinoma of
breast. Most importantly, NES1 expression was down-regulated in about 50%
of ductal carcinoma in situ, suggesting that loss of NES1 expression could
serve as an early diagnostic marker for breast cancer. Her laboratory has
also identified several novel human papilloma virus E6 oncogene targets: a
novel Rap1GAP designated as E6TP1; a novel transcriptional co-activator of
p53, retinoid receptors and estrogen receptors, hADA3; a Rho-activated serine
threonine protein kinase, PKN; and a coactivator for Notch-mediated transactivation,
MamL1. These proteins are associated with epithelial cancer-associated HPVs
but not with benign lesion-associated HPVs. Moreover, mammary epithelial cell-immortalizing
E6 mutants, but not the non-immortalizing E6 mutants bind to these proteins,
thus implicating these proteins as important targets in epithelial tumorigenesis.
The major focus of Vimla Band’s laboratory is to examine the role of
these novel epithelial oncogenes targets in mammary gland growth, differentiation,
development, and oncogenesis.