Dr. Counter is Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Associate Professor in Radiation Oncology, and member of the Duke Cancer Institute. Dr. Counter is also Duke-NUS Basic Science Research Liaison with responsibility for developing basic science research collaborations.
Dr. Counter is a graduate of McMaster University in 1996 and completed his postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998. Upon completion of his training, he can to Duke as an Instructor in the Department of Pharmacology & Cancer Biology.
The Counter lab studies the molecular mechanisms underlying the evolution of normal cells into cancer. The lab is divided into two major areas studying key features of human cancers.
Immortalization: We have shown that the ability of cancer cells to keep dividing, or become immortal, is a fundamental aspect of tumorigenesis, and is due to elongation of telomeres. Current efforts focus on the molecular biology of telomere-binding proteins in regulating telomere length.
Proliferation: The ability of tumor cells to proliferate inappropriately is a hallmark of cancer. One gene that plays a key role in this process is the oncogene Ras. We have shown that Ras exerts its oncogenic signals through different proteins at different phases of cancer. Current studies focus on how these different pathways promote cancer and how to inhibit their activity.