Our group is interested in understanding the metabolic adaptations that allow cancer cells to grow and proliferate, causing tumor growth. To understand how cancer cell metabolism works to fuel tumor growth, we use metabolomics techniques to catalog what nutrients are in the microenvironment of tumors. This provides us with a "menu" of nutrients that cancer cells could potentially metabolize to fuel their growth. Once we know the "menu" for different tumor types, we then use a variety of experimental tools from metabolomics to CRISPR gene editing to determine which nutrients cancer cells actually consume from the "menu", and which metabolic pathways process these nutrients. From these experiments, we are delineating the biochemical underpinnings of cancer cell growth.
Alexander Muir, PhD
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Assistant Professor of Ben May Department of Cancer Research
Committee on Cancer Biology
Committee on Molecular Metabolism and Nutrition - Research and Scholarly Interests: Cancer Metabolism, Cancer of the Lung, Cancer of the Pancreas, Cellular Proliferation, Mass Spectrometry, Metabolism, Metabolomics
- Websites: Lab Site, Research Network Profile
- Contact: amuir@uchicago.edu
- Graduate Programs: Cancer Biology, Molecular Metabolism and Nutrition