Mary Helen Barcellos-Hoff, PhD
The Barcellos-Hoff laboratory studies radiation carcinogenesis and biologically augmented radiotherapy. In studies funded by DOE and NASA, she describe the complexity of radiation effects on biological systems and identified new mechanisms underlying radiation carcinogenesis. Translational research based on aspects of these low dose radiation studies provided new insights into the role of transforming growth factor beta (TGFß) in genomic stability and the DNA damage response and a rationale for implementing TGFß inhibition during radiotherapy. Her research shows that radiation-induced activation of TGFß mediates cancer cell response to genotoxic therapy, affects malignant cell phenotypes, alters the composition of the tumor microenvironment, and inhibits immunological responses that could eliminate cancer. Detailed understanding of how TGFß opposes effective cancer therapy are necessary for identifying patients who could benefit from TGFß inhibitors.
Dr. Barcellos-Hoff received an undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and earned a doctoral degree in experimental pathology from the University of California, San Francisco. She conducted postdoctoral research on extracellular matrix mediated functional differentiation with Mina Bissell at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). She joined LBNL as a staff scientist, where she rose from postdoctoral fellow to Senior Scientist and Associate Director of the Life Sciences Division. She joined New York University School of Medicine in 2008 as Director of Radiation Biology in the Department of Radiation Oncology. In 2015, he moved to UCSF as Professor and Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Radiation Oncology.