Direna Alonso‐Curbelo

This study shows that GATA4 loss in Kras-mutant mice leads to PDAC without canonical precursor lesions, identifying a new lesion type and revealing GATA4's role in inflammatory programs.

In mouse pancreatic cancer models, p53, CDKN2A and SMAD4 programs converge on a rare Kras-mutant progenitor-like state whose niche KRAS inhibition collapses and p53 loss expands.

This study shows that metastatic site influences the function of driver genes like SMAD4 in pancreatic cancer, with organ-specific epigenetic states affecting tumor growth.

The paper shows that inhibiting bromodomain proteins like BRD4 reduces FGF15/19 expression, leading to hyperglycemia, and that overexpressing FGF19 can reverse these effects.

The paper develops PSIONIC, a machine learning method that integrates chromatin accessibility and RNA-seq data to infer transcriptional programs in gynecologic and basal breast cancers, revealing regulatory differences and survival associations.