Jessalyn Ubellacker
Harvard University, MA·Biochemistry
Most melanoma deaths happen after the cancer spreads to distant organs, a process called metastasis. Yet scientists still understand little about what lets cancer cells survive the trip.
- Fields
Biochemistry
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biology
- Topics
melanoma
metastasis
lymph nodes
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2029
What they work on
- Test whether melanoma cells depend on making N-acylglycines, a class of lipid molecules, to survive in lymph nodes, and whether blocking this pathway reduces their survival, using patient-derived xenograft and mouse melanoma models.
- Assess how dietary and internally made fatty acids raise lipid oxidation and kill melanoma metastases in lymph nodes, building on the finding that oleic acid in lymph shields cells.
- Determine whether resistance to ferroptosis, cell death driven by oxidized membrane fats, can be targeted to reduce melanoma cell survival in lymph nodes, using mice and human clinical samples.
More about the research
Traveling cancer cells face oxidative stress, damage from reactive oxygen molecules. One way this stress kills cells is ferroptosis, a type of cell death driven by the buildup of oxidized, damaged fats in cell membranes. Earlier work by Dr. Ubellacker found that melanoma cells in lymph, the fluid that drains into lymph nodes, are protected from ferroptosis. Lymph is rich in oleic acid, a monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA). Oleic acid lowers the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in membranes, and PUFAs are the fats most prone to oxidation. This suggests that targeting fat metabolism might stop melanoma from spreading out of lymph nodes.
Why it matters
This work could identify lipid targets and dietary interventions to prevent melanoma from spreading beyond the lymph nodes, a major cause of melanoma death. Lipid biomarkers could help doctors identify which patients might safely skip surgery to remove lymph nodes, sparing them its side effects. The approach may also apply to prostate, lung and breast cancers.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jennifer Watts
Washington State University, WA·Genetics
Identify genes and pathways that control ferroptosis triggered by dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids in C. elegans germ cells, using genetic, dietary and biochemical approaches.
Alexander Stegh
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Pharmacology
Determine the cellular, epigenomic, and metabolic mechanisms by which wild-type IDH1 keeps tumor-associated myeloid cells immunosuppressive, using mice in which the enzyme is switched on or deleted only in myeloid cells via tamoxifen-induced LysM-creERT2 recombination.
Ginger Milne
University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL·Pharmacology
Identify how four specialized pro-resolving lipid mediators (RvE4, RvD1, RvD5 and maresin 2), molecules that help end inflammation, are chemically transformed using a laboratory model of human metabolism.
The school
Harvard University: 42 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 712 research doctorates a year.
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