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| Name |
White, Eileen |
| Location
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Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick |
| Primary Field
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Medical Genetics, Hematology and Oncology |
 Election Citation
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Eileen White's laboratory focuses on identifying mechanisms required for tumor cells and tumors to survive, proliferate, and evade surveillance by the immune system.
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Research Interests
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Eileen White's laboratory focuses on identifying mechanisms required for tumor cells and tumors to survive, proliferate, and evade surveillance by the immune system. The overall goal is to reveal novel approaches for cancer therapy. By studying how an oncogene encoded by the DNA tumor virus adenovirus promotes oncogenesis they established that it encoded a viral homologue of the human BCL-2 oncoprotein that blocked apoptosis by binding and inhibiting pro-apoptotic BCL-2 protein family members. These findings contributed to the intellectual leap that evading apoptosis was one of the hallmarks of cancer. By examining how tumor cells survive nutrient deprivation they discovered that they do so by upregulating intracellular nutrient scavenging by autophagy to recycle macromolecules into metabolic pathways. They went on to establish that autophagy in the host sustains levels of the amino acid arginine in the circulation, which is essential for tumor growth. By examining how autophagy controls the immune response they discovered that autophagy suppresses inflammation, thereby limiting an anti-tumor T-cell response that enables tumor growth. Collectively, these findings delineated novel tumor cell autonomous and host metabolic functions maintained by autophagy critical for tumor growth, and the means by which autophagy prevents tumor elimination by the immune system.
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