Angelina Vaseva, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Despite the high cure rates among children with cancer, following treatment with current multimodality therapies, survivors face profound lifelong therapy-related complications and development of second malignancies, with increasing chronic life-threatening toxicities as they age. In addition, survival rate for many high-risk pediatric cancer patients had not improved significantly over the last 30 years. Hopes for the future depend on identifying novel therapies that target specific cancer-driving cellular and molecular mechanisms, which will ensure improved survival for high-risk patients and provide better quality of life for survivors.

Components of the RAS and ERK MAPK pathways are frequently deregulated in pediatric cancers including leukemias, central nervous system tumors, and extracranial solid tumors. Our focus is to systematically define mechanisms of RAS and ERK MAPK- driven vulnerabilities in pediatric cancers and design directions for clinically relevant targeted therapeutic options. Toward these efforts we employ a wide variety of in vitro cell-based assays, unbiased genetic and pharmacologic screens as well as in vivo preclinical testing of patient-derived xenograft tumor models.

Another focus of our research is to understand how the two oncogenes RAS and MYC cooperate to promote tumor cell growth and maintenance and how we can exploit this cooperation in order to design therapeutic strategies for RAS-driven pediatric cancers. We recently demonstrated that targeting MYC degradation in RAS-driven cancers circumvents treatment adaptation. Further, we have determined that maintenance of MYC protein levels is context specific and precise evaluation in each cancer type is required. By utilizing MYC-degradation reporter we aim to identify signaling pathways and druggable targets that regulate MYC protein stability in pediatric sarcomas. Further, we will exploit our discoveries toward design of novel targeted therapeutic strategies.

Professional Background
Education
- 2018 - Postdoctoral Training - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, NC, USA
- 2013 - Postdoctoral Training - Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring, NY, USA
- 2012 - Ph.D. - Molecular Biology - Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
- 2001 - M.Sc. - Molecular Biology - Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria
Highlights

2018       American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellowship award

2017       AACR Scholar in training award

2015       Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) individual postdoctoral

               fellowship (F32)

2014       Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Institutional Research Training

              Grant

2004      International Research Fellow Award, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH
Appointments
- 5/2019 - Assistant Professor - Research - University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute, Department of Molecular Medicine, San Antonio, TX
Instruction & Training
- 01/2020 - Present, Postdoctoral fellow training, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute
- Summer 2014, Mentoring Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) student, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
- Spring 2014, Lecture, ‘Genetic basis of cancer’, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, Cell Biology Laboratory (BIO447-undergarduate)
- Spring 2008, Teaching Assistant: Biochemistry Laboratory (BIO365-undergraduate, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY
- Fall 2008, Teaching Assistant: Fundamentals of Biology: Molecular and Cellular Biology (BIO202-undergarduate), Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY
Publications

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Angelina Vaseva, Ph.D.

Professional Background

Education

Highlights

Appointments

Instruction & Training

Publications