In January, the KidneyCAN team traveled to Syracuse, New York to visit the SUNY (State University of New York) Upstate Medical University and met with Dr. Gennady Bratslavsky and his team at the urology department. In 2011, Dr. Bratslavsky became Professor and Chair of the Department of Urology at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Along with a busy clinical practice, Dr. Bratslavsky is active in both clinical and basic science research.
On this day, Dr. Bratslavsky invited us to catch a glimpse of what a day in the life of a researcher looks like.
After touring the urological clinical facilities, we were provided an up-close-and-personal, hands-on tour of the kidney cancer research laboratories led by Dr. Mehdi Mollapour, Dr. Dimitra Bourboulia, and Dr. Vladimir Kuznetsov. Dr. Mollapour is “known for his work that focuses on understanding and targeting the guardian of cancer called Heat Shock Protein-90 or Hsp90, which is essential to kill and halt the growth of cancer cells.”
In Dr. Mollapour’s lab, we saw this work in progress as it relates to kidney cancer. Dr. Bourboulia’s research team is studying extracellular protein signaling and homeostasis as it relates to cancer therapy. They hope this will lead to a better understanding of what makes cancer grow.
Dr. Vladimir Kuznetsov’s current projects focus on basic molecular mechanisms leading to genome and transcriptome instability and their interactions in cancers. This involves the genetic mutations in cancers, and why those mutations are important to kidney cancer research.
KidneyCAN is thankful for the hospitality of Dr. Bratslavsky and his urological team for allowing us to enter their research labs and see first hand the work being done by this talented team of researchers and physicians. Thank you for doing what you do: RESEARCH! You are providing ongoing hope for thousands affected by kidney cancer.
KidneyCAN gets an up-close look inside the research lab with Dr. Mehdi Mollapour, Dr. Dimitra Bourboulia, Dr. Gennady Bratslavsky, and their research team.
