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| JOSEPH T. O'FLAHERTY, M.D.
Research Professor
Department of Internal Medicine
Section on Infectious Diseases
Wake Forest University School of Medicine
Medical Center Boulevard
Winston Salem, NC 27157 - 1042 Phone: 336-716-4507
Fax: 336-716-3825 |
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Dr. O’Flaherty’s laboratories study the biochemistry and biology of cellular lipids such as the phospholipid metabolite, platelet-activating factor, and certain arachidonic acid metabolites, i.e. hydroxy-eicosatetraenoic acids, prostaglandins, and leukotrienes. The labs focus on defining the 1) cell types producing and responding to the lipids, 2) the mass of metabolites produced, 3) the conditions causing this production, 4) the metabolic pathways for this synthesis, 5) the lipids’ biological activity in cells, tissues, and animals, and 6) the mechanisms by which the lipids act.
In the past, his labs have evaluated the lipids with respect to white blood cells and inflammation. Results of these studies have supported the now established views that white blood cells make the lipids, that the lipids then proceed to promote inflammation, and that drugs blocking these lipids’ production or action are anti-inflammatory in animals and humans.
Dr. O’Flaherty’s labs are now investigating the lipids in cancer to learn if they are made by cancer cells, if they promote their parent cancers’ growth, and if blocking their production or action inhibits cancer. The labs use prostate and breast cancer as models systems; measure lipid production in these cancers’ cells or tissues by mass spectroscopy; determine if these cells, when genetically engineered or otherwise manipulated to over or under produce the lipids, have altered growth properties in culture and in mice; and if mice genetically engineered or treated by drugs or diet to over or under produce the lipids show changes in the progression of the prostate or breast cancers they are genetically engineered to develop. Results of this work will be translated to humans in the future with goals of showing that in humans, as in mice, one or more of the lipids is pro-cancerous and that drugs, diets, and genetic interventions inhibiting the production or action of this lipid(s) are anti-cancerous.
Rhonda Wooten, M.S., M.A.
Lab Technician