Thomas “Trey” Westbrook, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Departments of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Molecular & Human Genetics
Dr. Westbrook was nominated for his far-reaching work in mammalian genetics, breast
cancer research and treatment, and cancer biology. His work with PTPN12 tyrosine
phosphatase showed that this protein severely limits the promise the tumorigenic
and metastatic potential of cells, potentially opening up the way to new strategies
for triple negative breast cancer treatment, which is the most poorly understood
breast cancer and resistant to current treatments. Other work with some of the most
dangerous and resistant oncogenes, such as Ras and Myc, yielded discoveries into
signaling networks essential for survival of those oncogenes in cancer cells. The
final work on which Dr. Westbrook’s nomination was based on his lab’s development
of a new generation of lentiviral tools that enable efficient experimental control
of gene expression through inducible RNAi across many tissue and cancer types in
vivo. These systems have been widely disseminated to the scientific community and
have been used for inducible RNAi and cDNA expression in diverse fields of study
including mammary gland development, lung cancer, oxygen sensing, and viral-host
response. Collectively, these innovative tools have facilitated new genetic approaches
and opened previously unexplored areas of research.
Three papers in particular demonstrate the impact and importance of Dr. Westbrook’s
work and form the basis of his nomination to the Michael E. DeBakey, M.D. Excellence
in Research Award:
Sun T, Aceto N, Meerbrey KL, Kessler JD, Zhou C, Migliaccio I, Nguyen DX, Pavlova
NN, Botero M, Huang J, Bernardi RJ, Schmitt EM, Hu G, Li MZ, Dephoure N, Rao M,
Gygi SP, Creighton CJ, Hilsenbeck SG, Shaw CA, Muzny D, Gibbs R, Wheeler D, Osborne
CK, Schiff R, Bentires-Alj M, Elledge SJ, Westbrook, TF (2011) " Activation of multiplpe proto-oncogenic
tyrosine kinases in breast cancer via loss of the PTPN12 phosphatase". Cell
, 144(5):703-18.
Kessler JD, Kahle KT, Sun T, Meerbrey KL, Schlabach MR, Schmitt EM, Skinner SO,
Xu Q, Li MZ, Hartman ZC, Rao M, Yu P, Dominguez-Vidana R, Liang AC, Solimini NL,
Bernardi RJ, Yu B, Hsu T, Golding I, Luo J, Osborne CK, Creighton CJ, Hilsenbeck
SG, Schiff R, Shaw CA, Elledge SJ, and Westbrook, TF (2012) " A sumoylation-dependent transcriptional
subprogram is required for Myc-driven tumorigenesis". Science 335(6066):
348-53.
Meerbrey KL, Hu G, Kessler JD, Roarty K, Li MZ, Fang JE, Herschkowitz JI, Burrows
AE, Ciccia A, Sun T, Schmitt EM, Bernardi RJ, Fu X, Bland CS, Cooper TA, Schiff
R, Rosen JM, Westbrook TF*, Elledge SJ* (2011) "
The pINDUCER lentiviral toolkit for inducible RNA interference in vitro and in vivo
". ”. PNAS, 108(9): 3665-70. *co-corresponding, co-equal contribution