Curtis A Thorne, PhD
Curtis A. Thorne, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Arizona and a member of the University of Arizona Cancer Center. He earned his B.S. in Biology from Baylor University in 2000 and conducted breast cancer research at Baylor College of Medicine in the laboratory of Dr. Adrian Lee. He completed his Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology at Vanderbilt University in 2010 under the mentorship of Dr. Ethan Lee, with a focus on Wnt signaling. Dr. Thorne then pursued postdoctoral training as an American Cancer Society Fellow at UT Southwestern Medical Center in the laboratories of Drs. Steven Altschuler and Lani Wu, where he investigated intestinal stem cells and drug resistance in colon cancer. In addition to his academic work, Dr. Thorne is a co-founder of two biotechnology companies: ProxyBio, which develops organoid-based drug testing platforms, and Branch Therapeutics, a cancer therapeutics company focused on targeting tumor-specific vulnerabilities.
Cancer Focus
My laboratory investigates the signaling mechanisms controlling cell fate of the gut. We address fundamental questions in cancer biology: How do cells identify, measure, and respond to each other and to their environment? What signals control the renewal and regeneration of epithelial tissues? How do these signals malfunction in colorectal cancer? Our goal is to uncover an underlying circuit theory behind these behaviors – a set of predictive principles revealing how complex functionality arises from simpler biological components. We focus on kinase networks that regulate healthy tissues and are dis-regulated in cancer. Through quantitative imaging and drug discovery, we are finding ways to understand and repair these networks.