Ochoa, O'Connor, Ouhtit
Augusto Ochoa, MDDirector, Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center
LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans
Co-Director, Louisiana Cancer Research Consortium
Professor of Pediatrics
Adjunct Associate Professor, Biochemistry
aochoa@lsuhsc.edu
Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center
Clinical Science Research Building
533 Bolivar Street New Orleans, LA 70112
Phone: (504) 568-5151 Fax: (504) 568-6888
Biographical Narrativ:
Augusto Ochoa, MD, earned his MD from the Universidad de Antioquia in Colombia in 1982. That year, he started a postdoctoral fellowship at the Immunobiology Research Center at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, where he became an Assistant Professor in 1986. He served as Head of the Immunotherapy Laboratory for the National Cancer Institute (NCI) from 1989 to 1996, and Head of the NCI Signal Transduction Laboratory from 1996 to 1997. At the LSU Health Sciences Center, he is Professor of Pediatrics, Adjunct Associate Professor of Biochemistry, and Director of the Cancer Center. At Children’s Hospital in New Orleans, he is a practicing physician specializing in the field of Allergy/Immunology. His research interests include T-cell function, cytokine production, macrophage T-cell interaction, immune regulation, immune dysfunction and disease, as well as tumor immunology
Recent Publications:
- Zabaleta J, Su LJ, Lin HY, Sierra RA, Hall MC, Sartor AO, Clark PE, Hu JJ, Ochoa AC. Cytokine Genetic Polymorphisms and Prostate Cancer Aggressiveness. Carcinogenesis. 2009 May 27. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 19474090.
- Norian LA, Rodriguez PC, O'Mara LA, Zabaleta J, Ochoa AC, Cella M, Allen PM. Tumor-infiltrating regulatory dendritic cells inhibit CD8+ T cell function viaL-arginine metabolism. Cancer Res. 2009 Apr 1;69(7):3086-94. Epub 2009 Mar 17. PubMed PMID: 19293186.
- Rodriguez PC, Ernstoff MS, Hernandez C, Atkins M, Zabaleta J, Sierra R, Ochoa AC. Arginase I-producing myeloid-derived suppressor cells in renal cell carcinoma are a subpopulation of activated granulocytes. Cancer Res. 2009 Feb 15;69(4):1553-60. Epub 2009 Feb 5. PubMed PMID: 19201693.
- Aviles DH, Vehaskari MV, Culotta KS, Manning J, Ochoa AC, Zea AH. T cell CD3 receptor zeta (TCRzeta)-chain expression in children with idiopathic nephritic syndrome. Pediatr Nephrol. 2009 Apr;24(4):769-73. Epub 2008 Dec 10. PubMed PMID: 19082633.
- Rodríguez PC, Ochoa AC. Arginine regulation by myeloid derived suppressor cells and tolerance in cancer: mechanisms and therapeutic perspectives. Immunol Rev. 2008 Apr;222:180-91. Review. PubMed PMID: 18364002.
- Zabaleta J, Lin HY, Sierra RA, Hall MC, Clark PE, Sartor OA, Hu JJ, Ochoa AC. Interactions of cytokine gene polymorphisms in prostate cancer risk. Carcinogenesis. 2008 Mar;29(3):573-8. Epub 2008 Jan 3. PubMed PMID: 18174250.
- Zabaleta J, Schneider BG, Ryckman K, Hooper PF, Camargo MC, Piazuelo MB, Sierra RA, Fontham ET, Correa P, Williams SM, Ochoa AC. Ethnic differences in cytokine gene polymorphisms: potential implications for cancer development. Cancer Immunol Immunother. 2008 Jan;57(1):107-14. Epub 2007 Jul 6. PubMed PMID: 17618436.
Kim C. O'Connor, Ph.D.Professor of Chemical Engineering
Adjunct Associate Professor of Surgery TCC Contributing Member
koc@tulane.edu
(504) 865-5740, (504) 865-6744 fax
Lindy Boggs Center #300, Tulane Uptown Campus
6823 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, LA 70118
Lab homepage: http://www.tulane.edu/~kim/oconnor.html
Homepage on the Chemical Engineering website:
http://www.tulane.edu/~ceng/Faculty/o'connor/Homex.htm
Biographical Narrative:
Dr. O'Connor earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rice University in 1982 and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering with a Minor in Biology under James Bailey at the California Institute of Technology in 1987. Her postdoctoral training was in molecular biology at Caltech and in cell biology at Northwestern University. Dr. O'Connor joined the faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Tulane University in 1990 as an Assistant Professor, and currently is an Associate Professor. In addition to her primary appointments at Tulane, she has served as Co-Director (1996-1999) and Interim Director (1997) of the Interdisciplinary Molecular & Cellular Biology Graduate Program at Tulane University and School of Medicine, adjunct associate professor in the Department of Surgery at Tulane Medical School (1999-present), and a member of the Tulane Cancer Center since its founding in 1994. Dr. O'Connor's recent awfards include the NASA Space Act Award, Tulane Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Tulane Interdisciplinary Teaching Award, and Society of Tulane Engineers and Lee H. Johnson Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. She has authored a total of 50 publications including 2 patents and over 20 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. O'Connor's research in the field of oncology is interdisciplinary, applying engineering theory and techniques to cancer biology to develop new cancer tissue models. The focus of her work has been multicellular spheroids of neoplastic cells, which mimic micrometastases and avascular regions of tumors from the perspectives of differentiated function and spatial organization. Using DU 145 human prostate carcinoma cells as a model system, Dr. O'Connor's laboratory has demonstrated that there are profound changes in protein expression and signal transduction when DU 145 cells form spheroids from monolayer culture. The resulting phenotype is more consistent with that of an intact tumor. In a second line of investigation using both well and poorly differentiated human prostate carcinoma cell lines, her laboratory applied computational and image analysis to characterize the kinetics of spheroid self-assembly. The kinetic properties are sensitive to changes in adhesive properties among different cell lines and within a given cell line in response to an up-regulation of cell adhesion molecules upon spheroid formation. The applications of Dr. O'Connor's research include in vitro drug testing and assessing the metastatic potential of tumor cells.
Recent Publications:
- Clejan S, O'Connor KC, Cowger NL, Cheles MK, Haque S, Primavera AC. (1996) Effects of simulated microgravity on DU 145 human prostate carcinoma cells. Biotechnol Bioeng 50: 587-597.
- O'Connor KC, Enmon RM, Dotson RS, Primavera AC, Clejan S. (1997) Characterization of autocrine growth factors, their receptors and extracellular matrix present in three-dimensional cultures of DU 145 human prostate carcinoma cells grown in simulated microgravity. Tissue Eng 3: 161-171.
- O'Connor KC. (1999) Three-dimensional cultures of prostatic cells: tissue models for the development of novel anti-cancer therapies. Pharm Res 16: 486-493.
- Clejan S, O'Connor KC, Rosensweig N. (2001) Tri-dimensional prostate cell cultures in simulated microgravity and induced changes in lipid second messengers and signal transduction. J Cell Mol Med 5: 60-73.
- Enmon RM, O'Connor KC, Lacks DJ, Schwartz DK, Dotson RS. (2001) Dynamics of spheroid self-assembly in liquid-overlay cultures of DU 145 human prostate cancer cells. Biotechnol Bioeng 72: 579-591.
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