The Van Meir laboratory holds many groundbreaking accomplishments. Listed below are a few recent achievements.
- Received new R01 grant (NS144449) titled “Targeting MBD2 for medulloblastoma therapy.” This drug discovery project aims to develop a small molecule that can reverse the silencing of the ADGRB1 tumor suppressor gene through targeting the epigenetic reader MBD2. It is based on prior work showing that BAI1/ADGRB1 is a tumor suppressor in medulloblastoma (Zhu D et al, 2018, Cancer Cell).
- Identified alternative isoforms of ADGRB1 expressed from an alternative promoter (Parag R et al, 2025, Molecular Neurobiology).
- Showed that targeting integrin α3 Blocks β1 Maturation in glioblastoma cells (Kuranage Y et al, 2024, Cells)
- His NIH funded project (R01 NS117666) titled “Mechanisms underlying BAI1/ADGRB1 negative regulation of glioblastoma mesenchymal transition and invasion” is aimed at studying the role of a cell surface receptor called BAI1/ADGRB1 and determine how to prevent brain cells from becoming invasive.
- Showed the importance of hypoxia/HIF in the growth of eye melanoma and identified a small molecule therapeutic that can block this process in mice models. (Dong L et al, 2019, Clin Cancer Res.)
- Founded OncoSpherix, a startup company that aims to translate to patient testing small molecule anti-cancer agents developed in his laboratory.
