Lymphoma
Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD
Columbia University Medical Center
Identified genetic lesions involved in pathogenesis of human B-cell tumors
- Dalla-Favera's research has identified the lesions and the genes involved in the development of human B-cell lymphoma, has determined the mechanism by which these lesions occur, and has elucidated the contribution of each lesion to tumor development.
- He determined the role of chromosomal translocations involving the c-myc proto-oncogene locus and immunoglobulin loci in the development of Burkitt lymphoma. These studies include the analysis of the mechanisms regulating the expression of the normal c-myc gene as well as of c-myc alleles structurally altered by chromosomal translocation in lymphoma cells.
- Dalla-Favera has studied the normal and pathologic functions of the BCL6 gene, a recently identified proto-oncogene that codes for a transcription factor expressed in B cells, and is altered in its regulatory region in a significant fraction of human lymphoma.
- He has identified novel oncogenes and tumor suppressors involved in the pathogenesis of lymphoma by virtue of their involvement in tumor-associated chromosomal translocations, or by "positional cloning" from chromosomal regions involved in tumor-associated deletions.
