Ghassan Mouneimne, PhD

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Associate Professor, Cellular & Molecular Medicine
Biography
Dr. Mouneimne earned his PhD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, studying the migratory behavior of invading cancer cells in Dr. John Condeelis’ laboratory. During his postdoctoral training with Dr. Joan Brugge at Harvard Medical School, he pursued new approaches for studying the role of the cytoskeleton in regulating cancer cell invasion, including strategies combining in vitro and in vivo modeling of human cancers with bioinformatic and histological analyses of clinical samples. In his own laboratory, Dr. Mouneimne focuses on understanding the plasticity of invading cancer cells in complex heterogeneous tumor microenvironments, with the goal of developing therapies that are more effective in blocking metastasis. Dr. Mouneimne is currently a tenured associate professor in Cellular and Molecular Medicine.
Cancer Focus
Research in our laboratory is focused on understanding how aberrant structural organization of the cytoskeleton influences cellular behavior, such as cancer cell invasion and metastasis. The regulation of cellular behavior by structural remodeling of the cytoskeleton exemplifies the paradigm of “structure regulates function” at the cellular level. Our goal is to identify distinct actin cytoskeletal architectures that impact the response of cancer cells to well-known genetic and microenvironmental factors during cancer progression.
Selected Publications
Truong, D. D., A. Kratz, J. G. Park, E. S. Barrientos, H. Saini, T. Nguyen, B. Pockaj, G. Mouneimne, J. LaBaer, and M. Nikkhah, "A Human Organotypic Microfluidic Tumor Model Permits Investigation of the Interplay between Patient-Derived Fibroblasts and Breast Cancer Cells.", Cancer Res, vol. 79, issue 12, pp. 3139-3151, 2019 06 15. PMCID: PMC6664809 PMID: 30992322
Puleo, J. I., S. S. Parker, M. R. Roman, A. W. Watson, K. Rahmani Eliato, L. Peng, K. Saboda, D. J. Roe, R. Ros, F. B. Gertler, et al., "Mechanosensing during directed cell migration requires dynamic actin polymerization at focal adhesions.", J Cell Biol, vol. 218, issue 12, pp. 4215-4235, 2019 12 02. PMCID: PMC6891092 PMID: 31594807
Padilla-Rodriguez, M., S. S. Parker, D. G. Adams, T. Westerling, J. I. Puleo, A. W. Watson, S. M. Hill, M. Noon, R. Gaudin, J. Aaron, et al., "The actin cytoskeletal architecture of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer cells suppresses invasion.", Nat Commun, vol. 9, issue 1, pp. 2980, 2018 07 30. PMCID: PMC6065369 PMID: 30061623
Peela, N., F. S. Sam, W. Christenson, D. Truong, A. W. Watson, G. Mouneimne, R. Ros, and M. Nikkhah, "A three dimensional micropatterned tumor model for breast cancer cell migration studies.", Biomaterials, vol. 81, pp. 72-83, 2016 Mar. PMID: 26724455
Mouneimne, G., S. D. Hansen, L. M. Selfors, L. Petrak, M. M. Hickey, L. L. Gallegos, K. J. Simpson, J. Lim, F. B. Gertler, J. H. Hartwig, et al., "Differential remodeling of actin cytoskeleton architecture by profilin isoforms leads to distinct effects on cell migration and invasion.", Cancer Cell, vol. 22, issue 5, pp. 615-30, 2012 Nov 13. PMCID: PMC3500527 PMID: 23153535