Cancer Microenvironment & Cell Signaling Program

Pierluigi Scalia M.D., Ph.D.

Director of the Cancer Microenvironment & Cell Signaling Program
Adjunct Professor

Our program is based upon the experience and research interests of its director, prof Pierluigi Scalia. The disclosure of the complex network of growth factors and their receptors in cancer with their multiple alternative variants and interactions on the outer cell membrane compartment determines the complex and wide variety of intracellular signals and gene expression targeting. This is even more relevant in a cancer cell where the modifications in tumor microenvironment components and the type of cancer-secreted factors affect the fate of a set of intracellular protein-protein and nuclear protein-DNA interactions underlying the altered behavior of cancer cells such as their acquired capability to grow tri-dimensionally, to form blood vessels, to invade tissues, and to escape the normal cell-cell interaction checkpoint. Dr Scalia’s laboratory adopts multidisciplinary approaches including cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, transcriptomics and proteomics in order to discover novel and potentially actionable molecular cancer mechanisms.

Specific Research Projects

Molecular and vascular biology of human Mesothelioma
Dissecting the network of cancer-secreted factors in promoting malignant phenotype in solid cancers
Environmental factors effects on cancer progression

Biography Details
Prof Scalia obtained his MD, from the University of Catania Italy and holds a PhD in Molecular Endocrinology. He holds US board certifications in molecular biology and molecular pathology (ACSP). Twenty years of laboratory training and work experience matured between the academic and private research sectors of which fifteen carried out in US research Institutions including the University of California, San Francisco, the University of Southern Califonia, Los Angeles and the City of Hope National Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, California, Pierluigi brings to SHRO and the program he leads his multi-rounded view of clinically relevant basic and translational research. Pierluigi is also the Director of a SHRO-affiliated Italian research organization (ISOPROG) which shares objectives and complementary programs meant to extend discovery from the bench to the patient bed.