Jonathan Coloff, PhD, is co-lead of the Cancer Center’s Cancer Biology Research Program and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biostatistics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Chicago. He joined UIC in 2018. The Coloff lab seeks to understand how the unique metabolic phenotypes in cancer cells arise, and to discover approaches of targeting metabolism for cancer therapy. The work has been focused on two broad areas: how cancer metabolic phenotypes are influenced by tumor lineage, and how nutrient availability can affect tumor metabolism and therapeutic response. Their work on tumor lineage has led to the discovery that estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast tumors are auxotrophic for the non-essential amino acid serine due to lineage-specific epigenetic silencing of the serine synthesis gene PSAT1. The discovery motivated them to explore potential strategies of targeting serine auxotrophy for the treatment of luminal/ER+ breast cancer and other tumors that are auxotrophic for serine. The work on nutrient availability has highlighted the importance of utilizing tissue culture media that more accurately recapitulates the in vivo microenvironment.
Jonathan Coloff, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
University of College of Medicine Chicago
Research Program
Cancer Biology (CB)
Phone: 312-996-7992
Email: [email protected]
