The Van Meir laboratory holds many groundbreaking accomplishments. Listed below are a few recent achievements.

  • Paper published in the journal Oncogene
    His paper titled “Melanoma of the eye: preclinical tests show path toward treatment” will support the further translation of the KCN1 arylsulfonamide scaffold toward a novel treatment for patients with metastatic uveal melanoma.
  • Received R01 grant:  1R01NS117666-01
    His project titled “Mechanisms underlying BAI1/ADGRB1 negative regulation of glioblastoma mesenchymal transition and invasion” is aimed to study the role of a cell surface receptor called BAI1 and determine how to prevent brain cells from becoming invasive.
  • Discovered new tumor suppressors in medulloblastoma and obtained a grant from the NIH to further this work. Published initial findings in the leading journal Cancer Cell that demonstrate the potential of epigenetic therapy for medulloblastoma therapy.
  • Showed the importance of hypoxia/HIF in the growth of eye melanoma and identified a small molecule therapeutics that can block this process in mice models. The work is in press in Clinical Cancer Research.
  • Founded OncoSpherix, a startup company that aims to translate to patient testing small molecule anti-cancer agents made in his laboratory. Supported by the Georgia Research Alliance.
  • Received two institutional mentoring awards
  • Participated in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) international network. The TCGA aims to redefine cancer based on a comprehensive understanding of the genomics of patient tumors. This effort has recently led to a reclassification of all human brain tumors by the World Health Organization, impacting the assignment of individual patients to more accurate prognostic groups, thereby impacting their treatments.
  • Manuscript titled “N-cadherin upregulation mediates adaptive radioresistance in glioblastoma” was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation
    • Osuka, S., Zhu, D., Zhang, Z., Li, C., Stackhouse, C. T., Sampetrean, O., Olson, J. J., Gillespie, G. Y., Saya, H., Willey, C. D., & Van Meir, E. G. (2021). N-cadherin upregulation mediates adaptive radioresistance in glioblastoma. The Journal of clinical investigation, 131(6), e136098. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI136098
    • You can learn more about this project by watching this video