Albert J. Fornace, Jr, MD

Metabolomics

Albert J. Fornace, Jr, MD was recruited to the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center three years ago and holds the Molecular Cancer Research Chair. He is an internationally recognized expert in growth control mechanisms mediated by tumor suppressors and is in the top 1% of cited authors in the life sciences (http://ISIHighlyCited.com). He has also been ranked in the top 30 cell-cycle researchers (http://www.cellcycles.org/labs.php ). He holds seven patents which are primarily for cancer therapeutics and diagnostics. A major focus of his recent research is the metabolomics of stress response.

At the NIH and later at Harvard and Georgetown, Fornace has been a leader in the stress signaling field and the key roles for some of these signaling pathways in cancer prevention as well as their perturbations that contribute to tumor development. He has in-depth experience in the mechanisms of action of cancer therapeutics including 10 years in NCI’s Laboratory of Molecular Pharmacology. He also has six years experience in experimental radiotherapy, radiobiology, and chemosensitizers for radiation therapy while in the Dept of Radiation Oncology at NCI, as well as six years experience in radiobiology and cancer biology at Harvard.

Fornace was a key contributor to the development of molecular markers for chemosensitivity and chemoresistance in the tumor cell lines of the NCI Anti–Cancer Drug Screen (NCI60) panel, while at the NCI. His cancer cell signaling studies now include global approaches including functional genomics and recently metabolomics. At Harvard he was the Director of the John B. Little for the Radiation Sciences and Environmental Health. He is a full member of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, and was also a full member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and the Harvard NIEHS Center for Environmental Health.

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