Dr. Haber will present the development and characterization of a microfluidic device for the efficient capture of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood specimens of patients with cancer. These cells represent potential biomarkers with which to follow disease progression, as well as providing important biological information into the process of metastasis. Examples will be provided, including the monitoring of tumor genotypes in EGFR-mutant lung cancer, as well as the molecular characterization of CTCs from patients with localized and metastastic prostate cancer.

His laboratory interests have focused on the area of cancer genetics, including the etiology of the pediatric kidney cancer Wilms tumor and genetic predisposition to breast cancer. Recently, his laboratory reported that lung cancers with activating mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) are uniquely sensitive to tyrosine kinase inhibitors that target this receptor. This observation has had important implications for the genotype-directed treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, and more broadly for strategies to identify critical genetic lesions in cancers that may serve as an "Achilles heel" and be suitable for molecular targeting. In collaboration with Dr. Mehmet Toner’s laboratory, Dr. Haber’s laboratory has recently established the application of a novel microfluidic technology for quantifying and purifying circulating tumor cells from the blood of patients with various epithelial cancers. This new application has potentially profound implications for early diagnosis of cancer and for noninvasive molecular profiling of cancers during the course of therapy.

Lecture Objectives:

1. Understanding the technological approaches involved in the isolation of extraordinarily rare circulating tumor cells

2. Early insight into the molecular characterization of circulating tumor cells

3. Appreciation for the promise and potential limitations of circulating tumor cell analyses

The NIH Director's Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series includes weekly scientific talks by some of the top researchers in the biomedical sciences worldwide.