McMurray Lab

Helene McMurray

Ph. D., 2004, University of Rochester, Department of Microbiology and Immunology

Assistant Professor of Genetics, Department of Biomedical Genetics (BMG)

Co-Leader, Breast Cancer Research Program

Member, Center for Genomics and Systems Biology

Research Overview

Targeting dependencies specific to cancer cells will provide rational approaches to ablate cancer cells while sparing normal cells. Our approach to find such cancer cell-specific vulnerabilities centers on ‘cooperation response genes’ (CRGs), downstream effectors of cooperating oncogenic mutations, highly enriched for regulators of malignant transformation. The McMurray laboratory leverages the breakthrough discovery of CRGs to find new ways and means to target basal-like breast cancer, an aggressive, hard-to-treat form of breast cancer with few effective treatment options.

Our research centers on understanding how signal integration and network architecture are distinct in cancer and normal cells. From this starting point, we study the role of CRGs in BLBC and non-cancerous breast cells, and in metastasis and tumor initiation, using genetic and pharmacologic approaches. Further, we have ongoing discovery efforts to find novel, breast-specific vulnerabilities using models of mammary transformation by cooperating oncogenic mutations.

Projects

Targeting basal-like breast cancer via ‘cooperation response genes’

Finding genes essential to basal-like breast cancer

Recent Publications

McMurray, H.R.*, E.R. Sampson*, G. Compitello*, C. Kinsey*, L. Newman, B. Smith, S. Chen, L. Klebanov, P. Salzman, A. Yakovlev and H. Land. 2008. Synergistic response to oncogenic mutations defines gene class critical to cancer phenotype. Nature, 453 (7198): 1112-16. PMID: 18500333. *Equal contribution View article in PubMed

Almudevar, A., M.N. McCall, H.R. McMurray, and H. Land. 2011. Fitting Boolean networks from steady state perturbation data. Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology, 10 (1): Article 47. View article in PubMed

Ashton, J.M., M. Balys, S.J. Neering, D.C. Hassane, G. Cowley, D.E. Root, P.G. Miller, B.L. Ebert, H.R. McMurray, H. Land, and C.T. Jordan. 2012. Gene sets identified with oncogene cooperativity analysis regulate in vivo growth and survival of leukemia stem cells. Cell Stem Cell, 11 (3): 359-72. PMID: 22863534 View article in PubMed

Sampson, E.R.*, H.R. McMurray*, D.C. Hassane, L. Newman, P. Salzman, C.T. Jordan, H. Land. 2012. Gene signature critical to cancer phenotype as a paradigm for anticancer drug discovery. Oncogene, Epub 10 Sep 2012. PMID: 22964631. *Equal contribution View article in PubMed

Graduate Program Affiliations

Ph.D. in Genetics, Genomics and Development (GGD)

Contact

Helene McMurray
University of Rochester
601 Elmwood Ave., Box 633
Rochester, NY 14642
Office: MRB 2-9619
+1-585-276-5235
helene_mcmurray@urmc.
rochester.edu

Lab Members

	Dorothy (DeeDee) Heyer, Technical Associate
	Pierre Candelaria, Postdoctoral Fellow
	Anwesha Ghosh, Ph.D. student
	Emily Walters, M.D./Ph.D. student
	Jesse Llop, Research Programmer

Graduate students interested in a rotation should contact Dr. McMurray to determine current availability.