Dr. Diehn's laboratory focuses on two main areas:
- cancer stem cell biology and its implications for therapy, and
- development of genomics-based biomarkers for identifying the presence of malignant cells (diagnostic), predicting outcome (prognostic), and predicting response to therapy (predictive)
Areas of study include cancers of the lung, breast, and gastrointestinal system. The lab is also interested in developing a deeper molecular understanding of normal and cancer stem cells, including identifying pathways and genes important for survival and self-renewal. Additionally, they are developing methods for overcoming resistance mechanisms to radiotherapy and chemotherapy in cancer stem cells. They employ the tools of cancer genomics, including high throughput sequencing for detecting cancer mutations and quantifying gene expression. Clinically I specialize in the treatment of lung cancer and applications of stereotactic ablative radiotherapy and perform both prospective and retrospective clinical studies.
