Current Projects

Currently there are 2 main focus areas of ongoing research in our lab.

1. Exploring the use of Natural Products as a potential metronomic treatment for breast cancer.

   1. Identifying and testing an extract mixture of phytochemical small molecules in killing breast cancer cells.

   2. Application of 2 main components, chlorogenic acid and cinnemaldehyde in treating breast cancer growth and metastasis while NOT significantly affecting normal breast epithelial or non-tumorigenic cells.

      1. Death by apoptosis

      2. Changes in mitochondrial function

         1. Increasing ROS generation

         2. Disrupting metabolism in cancer cells

         3. Analyzing intracellular pH changes

      3. Inhibition of invasion and migration associated with metastasis

         1. Exploring the AKT pathway

         2. Re-establishment of adherent phenotype

2. Investigating aspects of Diet-Induced-Obesity, specifically associations with dysfunctional metabolism.

   1. Establishing and characterizing an obesity model for longevity studies in high-fat diet fed mice

      1. Using the C3H/HeJ mouse strain

      2. Exploring sexually dimorphic responses to high-fat diet induced obesity

   2. Exploring the role of ammonium hydroxide supplementation of dietary fat

      1. Comparing casein and beef as dietary fat sources - "Humanizing the mouse diet"

      2. Determining the effects of ammonium hydroxide enhanced (AHE)  dietary proteins in metabolically-associated cancers

         1. Attenuating onset of cancers in both sexes by 6 months

         2. increasing longevity in mice fed AHE diets

         3. Demonstrating distinct beneficial changes in microbiota of mice fed HFD + AHE modified proteins

      3. Elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying  the differences between dietary proteins and the beneficial effects of AHE

         1. RNAseq

         2. LC-MS

         3. Immunoblotting

         4. Immunhistochemistry

         5. Histological changes, specifically in liver lipid accumulation (MASLD to MASH to HCC)