Dr. Moulay Alaoui-Jamali,
Professor, Departments of Medicine/Oncology and Cancer Center, McGill University; Leader, Drug Discovery Program, Montreal Centre for Experimental Therapeutics in Cancer

Address:
Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research
Room 523
3755, Chemin Cote-Ste-Catherine
Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3T 1E2
Tel. 514-340-8260/8222 Ext. 3438/3432
Fax: 514-340-7576
E. mail:moulay.alaoui-jamali@mcgill.ca

Research interests
My research career has included a breadth of interdisciplinary studies spanning the fields of cancer biology, drug resistance, cancer models, and novel therapeutics. Recently my laboratory has begun to branch out further into the areas of genomic and proteomic applied to cancer progression and cancer targeting. My laboratory has contributed to several novel findings to understand the biology of cancer, including (1) discovery of a novel member of the TRIP gene family of transcription factors called RBT1, and which encode for an oncoprotein involved in the regulation of cell cycle (NIH Gene bank: AF192529 and AF317202), (2) identification of molecular switches by which aberrant expression of growth factor receptors of the ErbB family induces tumor invasion of distant sites, and (3) discovery of novel interactors of the cell-cell communication proteins called connexins, which we reported to be deregulated in cancer. My work has been published in peer-review cancer journals, and was recently summarized in an invited review for the journal "Drug Resistance Updates" and a book chapter on cancer therapeutics (see list of selected publications).

In addition to basic and applied research, my laboratory has established a national and international expertise in screening for novel therapeutics in a variety of relevant non-invasive and invasive in vivo cancer models established in this laboratory. Over 15 pharmaceutical companies from Canada and abroad have used our expertise to develop novel cancer therapeutics.

Ongoing research

· Characterization of the molecular switches by which growth factor receptor signaling promotes the disorganization of the extracellular matrix, activation of local host stroma, and neovascularization.

· Characterization of in vitro and in vivo function(s) of RBT1, a novel cancer associated gene discovered in this laboratory.

· Understanding the mechanisms by which HCV and HBV oncoproteins and the associated inflammatory processes promote carcinogenesis.

· Development of novel cancer targets and molecules we identified by genomic and biochemical approaches, and design of inhibitors for therapeutic purposes