News

Timothy Haystead, PhD

Haystead receives inaugural Neil L. Spector, MD, Legacy Award for Transformational Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Research

Timothy Haystead, PhD, professor of pharmacology and cancer biology, has been honored with the inaugural Neil L. Spector, MD, Legacy Award for Transformational Lyme and Tick-Borne Disease Research, from the Bay Area Lyme Foundation. The award is the foundation’s highest scientific honor, recognizing bold, rigorous, translational research that moves patients closer to answers.
Lee Zou, PhD, and Yunhao Song, PhD, found a surprising reason why ATR inhibitors work for only a subset of cancer patients with ATM kinase mutations

Zou Lab: Study suggests how to predict which cancer patients will benefit from ATR inhibitors

A new study led by Lee Zou, PhD, with key contributions from postdoctoral associate Yunhao Song, PhD, suggests the answer may lie in cGAS, a protein best known for activating immune “alarm signals” inside cells. Researchers found that cGAS levels strongly influence how well ATR inhibitors work in tumors with ATM mutations. Without cGAS, ATM-deficient cancer cells were far less sensitive to these experimental drugs — pointing to a potential new way to identify patients most likely to benefit.