Basic Science Researcher

Robert Debs, M.D.

Introduction  |  Publications

Introduction

Before embarking on a full time career in biomedical research, I trained as a physician in internal medicine, hematology and oncology. Today, my laboratory at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute focuses on:

1. identifying the genes whose mutation causes cancer to spread and kill.
   
   
2. developing more powerful gene delivery and expression technologies, so that we can correct these cancer-causing abnormal genes directly in patients.

Using these newer gene delivery approaches, my laboratory has developed promising new gene therapy technologies that are currently being tested in human patients with lung cancer and melanoma.

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Publications

Publications by Robert J. Debs in PubMed.

Recent publications include:

1. Liu Y, Liggitt D, Fong S, Debs RJ. Systemic co-administration of depsipeptide selectively targets transfection enhancement to specific tissues and cell types.
   Gene Ther. 2006 Dec;13(24):1724-30. Epub 2006 Aug 3.



2. Bagheri S, Nosrati M, Li S, Fong S, Torabian S, Rangel J, Moore DH, Federman S, Laposa RR, Baehner FL, Sagebiel RW, Cleaver JE, Haqq C, Debs RJ, Blackburn EH, Kashani-Sabet M. Genes and pathways downstream of telomerase in melanoma metastasis.
   Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Jul 25;103(30):11306-11. Epub 2006 Jul 17.



3. Fong S, Liu Y, Heath T, Fong P, Liggitt D, Debs RJ. Membrane-permeant, DNA-binding agents alter intracellular trafficking and increase the transfection efficiency of complexed plasmid DNA.

Mol Ther. 2004 Oct;10(4):706-18.


4. Fong S, Debs RJ, Desprez PY. Id genes and proteins as promising targets in cancer therapy.
   Trends Mol Med. 2004 Aug;10(8):387-92. Review.



5. Nosrati M, Li S, Bagheri S, Ginzinger D, Blackburn EH, Debs RJ, Kashani-Sabet M. Antitumor activity of systemically delivered ribozymes targeting murine telomerase RNA.
   Clin Cancer Res. 2004 Aug 1;10(15):4983-90.



6. Kashani-Sabet M, Shaikh L, Miller JR 3rd, Nosrati M, Ferreira CM, Debs RJ, Sagebiel RW. NF-kappa B in the vascular progression of melanoma. J Clin Oncol. 2004 Feb 15;22(4):617-23.



7. Liu Y, Fong S, Debs RJ. Cationic liposome-mediated gene delivery in vivo. Methods Enzymol. 2003;373:536-50. No abstract available.



8. Fong S, Mounkes L, Liu Y, Maibaum M, Alonzo E, Desprez PY, Thor AD, Kashani-Sabet M, Debs RJ. Functional identification of distinct sets of antitumor activities mediated by the FKBP gene family.
   Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Nov 25;100(24):14253-8. Epub 2003 Nov 11.



9. Fong S, Itahana Y, Sumida T, Singh J, Coppe JP, Liu Y, Richards PC, Bennington JL, Lee NM, Debs RJ, Desprez PY. Id-1 as a molecular target in therapy for breast cancer cell invasion and metastasis.
   Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Nov 11;100(23):13543-8. Epub 2003 Oct 24.

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