General Description

Dr. Tuveson’s laboratory will use their expertise in forward genetics and mouse cancer modeling to mutagenize enterochromaffin cells, enteroendocrine cells found in the digestive and respiratory tracts, to both generate models of carcinoid cancer and simultaneously identify genes and pathways that promote carcinoid cancer formation.

The lack of model systems that accurately recapitulate the behavior of neuroendocrine cancers has long been a significant hurdle to developing targeted treatments for patients. This project has the promise to create faithful animal models; therefore, eliminating one of the barriers to treatment development.