James Valerinano Alvarez

Assistant Professor of Pharmacology & Cancer Biology

Amgen Faculty Mentor

CMB - Pharmacology and Cancer Biology

Education and Training

Pennsylvania State University, B.S. 1999
Harvard Medical School, Ph.D. 2005

Selected Grants and Awards

Publications

mILC-ing the mouse mammary gland: A model for invasive lobular carcinoma.

Mouse models that faithfully recapitulate human cancers are indispensable tools for studying the molecular mechanisms of tumorigenesis and testing potential anticancer therapies. In this issue of Cancer Cell, Derksen et al.

Oncogene addiction: Mouse models and clinical relevance for molecularly targeted therapies

Oncogene pathway activation in mammary tumors dictates FDG-PET uptake.

Increased glucose utilization is a hallmark of human cancer that is used to image tumors clinically.

Oncogenic transformation by inhibitor-sensitive and -resistant EGFR mutants.

Somatic mutations in the kinase domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase gene EGFR are common in lung adenocarcinoma.

Par-4 downregulation promotes breast cancer recurrence by preventing multinucleation following targeted therapy.

Most deaths from breast cancer result from tumor recurrence, but mechanisms underlying tumor relapse are largely unknown.

Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 is required for the oncogenic effects of non-small-cell lung cancer-associated mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor.

Somatic mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) occur frequently in lung cancer and confer sensitivity to EGFR kinase inhibitors gefitinib and erlotinib.