Conquering RAS

Asfar Azmi, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Oncology, Wayne State University. He has more than a decade of research experience in the area of cancer biology and drug discovery. Dr. Azmi’s lab has made significant pre-clinical discoveries in advanced animal tumor models that helped the clinical development of new cancer drugs. Dr. Azmi has considerable experience in the area of early phase clinical research. Several agents developed by his team have gone into Phase II clinical studies. He has published more than 100 cancer research articles and has edited three additional books, among which there are the Elsevier publications Molecular Diagnostics and Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer as well as Conquering Ras. He is the recipient of numerous young investigator awards from premier scientific bodies. The National Institute of Health and pharmaceutical industry have continuously funded his lab.

• SECTION I: RAS CANCER BIOLOGY1. Ras and RASSF effector proteins / Jessica N. Mezzanotte and Geoffrey J. Clark2. Ras and the Hippo pathway in cancer / Eric O'Neill3. The Many Roles of RalGTPases in Ras-driven Cancer / David F. Kashatus4. The biology, prognostic relevance and targeted treatment of Ras pathway positive childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia / Julie Anne Elizabeth Irving5. Oncogenic KRAS and the Inflammatory Microenvironment in Pancreatic Cancer / Hui-Hua Chang, Andrea Schmidt and Guido Eibl6. Activation of Ras by Post-Translational Modifications / Shengyan Xiang, Wenlong Bai, Gerold Bepler and Xiaohong Zhang7. Cross talk between Snail and mutant K-ras contributes to pancreatic cancer progression / Christina R. Chow, Kazumi Ebine, Holly Z. Hattaway, Krishan Kumar and Hidayatullah G. MunshiSECTION II: NOVEL THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES TARGETING RAS AND RELATED PATHWAYS8. Search for Inhibitors of Ras-Driven Cancers / Adam B. Keeton and Gary A. Piazza9. GTP-competitive inhibitors of RAS family members / John C. Hunter and Kenneth D. Westover10. Next generation strategies to target RAF / Darrin D. Stuart11. Targeting metabolic vulnerabilities in Ras-mutant cells / Aparna D Rao and Grant A McArthur12. Blocking SIAH proteolysis, an important K-RAS vulnerability, to control and eradicate K-RAS-driven metastatic cancer / Robert Van Sciver, Monicah M. Njogu, Andrew J. Isbell, Justin J. Odanga, Minglei Bian, Elizaveta Svyatova, Lauren L. Siewertsz van Reesema, Vasilena Zheleva, Jamie L. Eisner, Jamie K. Bruflat, Rebecca L. Schmidt, Angela M. Tang-Tan, and Amy H. Tang13. Extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1 and ERK2) Inhibitors / Ahmad Samatar14. Targeting Rho, Rac, CDC42 GTPase effector p21 activated kinases in cancer / Asfar Sohail Azmi; Philip A. Philip