Narendra Wajapeyee PhD

Assistant Professor of Pathology

Research Interests

Cancer; Genomics; RNAi; Senescence; DNA methylation; RNAi delivery to cancer cells

Research Summary

Cancer is a complex disease and typically involves multiple gene-specific and global genetic and epigenetic changes in human genome. The major class of genes that has been causally linked to the process of tumorigensis is tumor suppressors, which acts as a “breaks” and oncogenes, which functions as “accelerators” and typically promotes cancer. Recently, microRNAs are also linked to cancer wherein they can function either as tumor suppressors or oncogenes. The focus of our lab is to understand the mechanisms of genetic and epigenetic regulation of cancer causing genes and translating this understanding for early detection and treatment of human cancers.

Selected Publications

  • Paul M Lizardi, Forloni M, Wajapeyee N. Genome-wide approaches for cancer gene discovery. Trends in Biotechnology, 2011 Jul 12 (Epub ahead of print)
  • Narendra Wajapeyee# and Michael R Green#. Induction of senescence in melanoma: thinking outside the cell. Pigment Cell and Melanoma Research, 2011 Aug (in Press). # Co-corresponding author.
  • Narendra Wajapeyee#, Shu-Zong Wang, Ryan W. Serra, Peter D. Solomon, Arvindhan Nagarajan, Xiaochun Zhu and Michael R. Green# Blood, 115: 5057-5060, June 17th, 2010. Senescence induction in human fibroblasts and hematopoietic progenitors by leukemogenic fusion-proteins # Joint corresponding authors
  • Rajendra K. Palakurthy#, Narendra Wajapeyee#, Manas Kumar Santra, Ling Lin, Stephane Gobeil, Claude Gazin, and Michael R. Green. Epigenetic Silencing of RASSF1A tumor suppressor Genethrough HOXB3-Mediated Induction of DNMT3B Expression. Molecular Cell (Oct 23, 2009). # Co-first author
  • Manas K. Santra#, Narendra Wajapeyee# and Michael R. Green. F-Box Protein FBXO31 Mediates Cyclin D1 Degradation to Induce G1 Arrest Following DNA Damage. Nature, 4th June, 2009.459: 722-5.# Co-first author
  • Narendra Wajapeyee, Ryan Serra, XiaChun Zhu, Meera Mahalingam and Michael R Green. Oncogenic BRAF induces Senesences through an Autocrine/Paracrine pathway by the Secreted Protein IGFBP7. Cell , 8th Feb 2008. 132; 363-74
  • Claude Gazin#, Narendra Wajapeyee#, Stephan Gobeil, Amy Virbasius and Michael R Green. An Elaborate Pathway Required for Ras-Mediated Epigenetic Silencing. Nature 25th October, 2007. 449; 1073-7. # Co-first author

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