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MCB 539 Biological Basis of Neoplasia: Lecture Schedule

Time & Location

Tuesdays and Thursdays

3:20 - 4:50 PM

Room B1-072/074 (next to Pelton Auditorium), Weintraub Building, Fred Hutch Campus

Course Textbook

Recommended Readings

Course Description

Understanding and controlling cancer is one of the major challenges of 21st century biology. Contemporary research on cancer encompasses multiple disciplines including molecular and cellular biology, virology, structural biology, evolutionary genetics, genomics and epidemiology. This course consists of a series of lectures and discussion meetings to introduce students to the major themes in research on the etiology of neoplastic change. The lectures will cover principal molecular mechanisms responsible for tumor initiation, progression, and metastasis with a specific emphasis on oncogenic drivers and tumor suppressors and loss of normal tissue homeostasis. Background concepts and state of the art research with emphasis on current major questions in cancer biology will be presented by faculty who are experts in their fields. The discussion meetings will concentrate on selected major papers in cancer biology and be presented and discussed by the students with help and guidance of the instructors.

Grading: Student overall participation, activity during discussions, quality and depth of the research paper presentation, and the written research proposal on one of the topics in cancer biology will be used for course credit and grading.

Prerequisites: Introductory biochemistry and cell biology.

Enrollment in the course is limited to 20 students.

Lecture 1: March 29, 2022

Introduction: Genetic Basis of Cancer

David MacPherson, PhD

Lecture 2: March 31, 2022

MYC: An Oncogene Paradigm

Bob Eisenman, PhD

Lecture 3: April 5, 2022

Cancer Epidemiology

Chris Li, MD, PhD

Lecture 4: April 7, 2022

The Deranged Cancer Genome

Alice Berger, PhD

Lecture 5: April 12, 2022

Cancer Stem Cells and Differentiation

Slobodan Beronja, PhD

Lit Review Session 1 (Lecture 6): April 14, 2022

Stem Cells and Cancer

Faculty Discussant: Slobodan Beronja, PhD

Lecture 7: April 19, 2022

Viral Cancers

Denise Galloway, PhD

Lecture 8: April 21, 2022

Cancer and the Immune System

Phil Greenberg, MD

Lecture 9: April 26, 2022

Bacteria and Cancer

Nina Salama, PhD

Lecture 10: April 28, 2022

Pediatric Cancers

Beth Lawlor, MD, PhD

Lecture 11: May 3, 2022

Metastasis I

Kevin Cheung, MD

Lit Review Session 2 (Lecture 12): May 5, 2022

Literature Review 2

Faculty Discussant: Alice Berger, PhD

Lecture 13: May 10, 2022

Metastasis II

Cyrus Ghajar, PhD

Lit Review Session 3 (Lecture 14): May 12, 2022

Literature Review 3

Faculty Discussants: David MacPherson, PhD & Bob Eisenman, PhD

Lecture 15: May 17, 2022

Prostate Cancer

John Lee, MD, PhD

Lit Review Session 4 (Lecture 16): May 19, 2022

Literature Review 4

Faculty Discussant: Cyrus Ghajar, PhD

Lecture 17: May 24, 2022

Targeted Protein Degradation

Behnam Nabet, PhD

Lecture 18: May 26, 2022

Functional Genomics in Cancer Research

Patrick Paddison, PhD

Lit Review Session 5 (Lecture 19): May 31, 2022

Literature Review 5

Faculty Discussant: Patrick Paddison, PhD

Lecture 20: June 2, 2022

Tumor Metabolism

Lucas Sullivan, PhD

MCB 539 Instructors

Course Organizers:

David MacPherson, PhD
dmacpher@fredhutch.org

Bob Eisenman, PhD
eisenman@fredhutch.org


Guest Lecturers:

Alice Berger, PhD
ahberger@fredhutch.org

Slobodan Beronja, PhD
beronja@fredhutch.org

Kevin Cheung, MD
kcheung@fredhutch.org

Denise Galloway, PhD
dgallowa@fredhutch.org

Cyrus Ghajar, PhD
cghajar@fredhutch.org

Phil Greenberg, MD
pgreen@u.washington.edu

Beth Lawlor, MD, PhD
elawlor@uw.edu

John Lee, MD, PhD
jklee5@fredhutch.org

Chris Li, MD, PhD
clll@fredhutch.org

Behnam Nabet, PhD
bnabet@fredhutch.org

Patrick Paddison, PhD
paddison@fredhutch.org

Nina Salama, PhD
nsalama@fredhutch.org

Lucas Sullivan, PhD
lucas@fredhutch.org