Research

Research Model:

Drosophila (fruit fly) egg chamber

Current research interests:

1. To establish Drosophila cancer models

Previously, our lab identified the ecdysone and JAK/STAT pathways as important regulators of the morphological movements of squamous cells (SCs) of Drosophila ovaries. Interestingly, the SC stretching process is accompanied by the loss of epithelial cell markers, which have key roles in regulating epithelial architectural integrity, as well as inhibiting the invasion and metastatic behavior of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) in humans. Our further meta-analysis results implicate human homologs of ecdysone and JAK/STAT are associated with patient survival outcomes in SCCs.

2. To apply established Drosophila cancer models for therapeutic screens and precision medicine

Our ultimate goal is to utilize the Drosophila ovary as a disease model to screen potential therapeutic drug candidates in developing precision medicine. This approach will be the first case to establish cancer models using the Drosophila ovary. Being inexpensive and populous, Drosophila are suitable for large scale drug effectiveness and efficacy tests for potential therapeutic drug candidates. Moreover, gene functions and biological processes related to tumorigenesis and cancer development are well conserved in Drosophila. With these qualities in mind, we will perform a drug screen to search among FDA-approved drugs and drug candidates under clinical trials for pharmacologically active compounds that inhibit cancer progression. Promising drugs will be validated in cell culture and mouse experiments for pre-clinical trials.

Previous research works:

Under the supervision of Dr. Guixue Wang at Chongqing University, Dr. Jia focused on improving the performance of drug-eluting stents, and advanced the field by examining the efficacy of selected drugs on the reduction of restenosis, a recurrence of blood vessel narrowing after stent implantation. Later he joined the laboratory of Dr. Wu-Min Deng at Florida State University, he mainly used the Drosophila egg chamber (fruit fly ovary) to understand Notch, JAK/STAT, and ecdysone signaling networks and their contribution to cell differentiation, proliferation, movement and cell fate determination, guiding the development of new treatments for human diseases caused by aberrant signaling activities. After joining Dr. Orsulic’s laboratory in 2015, Dr. Jia and collaborators discovered a COL11A1-correlated pan-cancer gene signature of activated fibroblasts that is conserved in epithelial cancers regardless of organ site and transforming events within cancer cells, which could be promising for the prioritization of therapeutic targets. Dr. Jia’s efforts also include functionally characterizing the roles of COL11A1 in stromal activation and promotion of ovarian cancer progression, and demonstrating the effectiveness of COL11A1 as a therapeutic target, using in vitro and nude mouse xenograft experiments.