The goal of the laboratory of Jignesh Tailor, BMBCH, PhD, is to understand how neural progenitors deviate away from their normal trajectory to generate brain and spinal cord tumors.
The Tailor Lab uses human neural stem cells as in vitro models of progenitors in the developing brain/spine and investigates the molecular and cellular effects of cancer predisposition genes on neural stem cell self-renewal and differentiation. Cancer predisposition gene mutations the Tailor Lab is actively studying include NF2 loss (Neurofibromatosis type 2) and PTCH loss (Gorlin syndrome).
Dr. Tailor and his team believe that understanding the early steps of brain tumorigenesis will lead to novel therapeutic strategies to prevent malignant tumors in patients with a brain cancer predisposition syndrome.