| Institution Affiliations: |
| Director, Norris Cotton Cancer Center |
| Professor of Pediatrics & of Genetics |
| Department of: Pediatrics |
| Service: Hematology/Oncology |
| Specialty: Hematology/Oncology |
| Joined Staff: 2001 |
| Cancer Center Membership: |
| Clinical Interests: |
| Genetics |
| Pediatric Hematology |
| Pediatric Oncology |
| General Pediatrics |
| Hematology/ Oncology |
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| Board Certified: |
| Pediatrics 1982 |
| Board Eligible: |
| Pediatric Hematology Oncology 1984 |
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| Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, NY 1973 |
| Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, (Pediatrics) 1973-75 |
| National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, (Pediatric Hematology Oncology) 1981-84 |
| Mark A. Israel received his BA from Hamilton College in 1968 and his MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University in 1973. After an internship and residency training in pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital Medical Center, he joined the research effort of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1975, first with the NIAID Laboratory of Biology of Viruses and thereafter with the DNA Recombinant Research Unit of NIAID, NIH. |
| Moving to the NIH National Cancer Institute, Dr Israel worked with the Pediatric Branch, and in 1984 became head of the Molecular Genetics Section of the Pediatric Branch. In 1989, he accepted a joint appointment with the UCSF School of Medicine as Professor of Neurological Surgery and Pediatrics, where he is also Director of the Preuss Laboratory of the UCSF Brain Tumor Research Center, a member of the Molecular Medicine Program and Program in Developmental Biology, and a member of the Biomedical Science Program. He has an international reputation for both his research and his educational efforts in the mentorship of postdoctoral fellows, and from 1993 to 1996, he was co-investigator in the gene therapy trial, "Gene Therapy for Treatment of Malignant Brain Tumors with in vivo Tumor Transduction with the Herpes Simplex Thymidine Kinase Gene/Ganciclovir System." Dr. Israel is currently also a member of the NIH NCI Board of Scientific Counselors. |
| Among the many honors Dr Israel has been accorded are lectureships at universities, congresses, and symposia in Japan, Germany, and Sweden and throughout the United States. He was co-chair of the Gene Therapy Minisymposia at the 85th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, and has organized a number of international meetings and seminars. He has been invited as Visiting Professor to universities in the United States and Canada, and was J. Walter Juckett Memorial Lecturer at the University of Vermont. He is recipient of the Heinz Karger Memorial Foundation Prize, the Upjohn Research Achievement Award, and twice the recipient of the US Public Health Service Commendation Medal. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Federation for the Advancement of Education in the Sciences and currently of the Neuroblastoma Foundation, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Leukemia Society of America, and chairman of the Tenure Review Panel of the NIH Division of Cancer Therapy. In 1999, he was named a member of the National Cancer Institute and the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Cancer Institute. He is a member of the scientific advisory boards of several corporations, conferences, and foundations, and is an associate editor of Oncology Reports, Journal of Neuro-Oncology, Journal of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, The Journal of Experimental Therapeutics and Oncology, Cancer Research, Molecular and Cellular Differentiation, and Cell Death & Differentiation. He is also a member of the Prison Advisory Board of San Quentin Prison and a member of the Board of Trustees of Marin Academy in California, and is active in the work of the National Brain Tumor Foundation. |
All tumors are characterized by both inappropriate growth and anaplasia, the loss of differentiated characteristics. Research in Dr Israel's laboratory concerns the molecular pathways over which these two key biologic activities, growth and differentiation, are coordinately regulated. Investigations are also ongoing on the role of aberrations in these pathways in the development of cancer.
Recent work has been focused on the characterization and evaluation of Id genes. These genes encode transcription factors that function as dominant negative inhibitors of basic helix-loop-helix proteins, which mediate lineage-specific gene expression. Id genes are ubiquitously expressed throughout early development, though they are rarely expressed in tissues from adults. Work in this laboratory has shown that these genes are also highly expressed in many different types of brain tumors. Expression of Id-2 can enhance cell growth, and our work has determined that this is mediated through a direct interaction with the product of the retinoblastoma gene, a known tumor suppressor.
Ongoing work is focused on further characterization of the cellular pathways that mediate Id-gene induced cell growth. Experiments have been conducted to understand the precise cell types in which tumors of the CNS arise, and the molecular alterations that characterize histologically indistinguishable tumors of astrocytes are being studied. These studies have involved the identification of novel tumor markers, as well as the characterization of known tumor cell markers in various types of CNS tumors.
Of particular interest has been the examination of genes whose expression is regulated during the course of nervous system differentiation and oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes whose structure and expression is altered in brain tumors. A program has also been initiated to develop novel approaches to the management of brain tumors through gene transfer technologies. Work is in progress to develop strategies that involve the delivery of toxic metabolites to tumor cells by cells that are specifically targeted to neoplastic tissues.
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| Selected Recent Publications: |
| http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ncccr/publications.html |
Weiss W., Burns M., Aldape K., Hackett C., Hill J. R., Kuriyma
H., Kuriyama N., Milshteyn N., Roberts T., Wendland M. F., DePinho R.,
Israel M. A. Genetic Determinants of Malignancy in a Mouse Model for
Oligodendroglioma. Cancer Research, 63: 1589-1595, 2003.
Murphy D., Swigart Brown L., Israel MA, Evan G. Id2 is dispensable for
myc-induced epidermal neoplasia. Mol. Cell. Biol., 24 (5): 2083-2090,
2004.
Yun K, Mantani A, Garel S, Rubenstein J, Israel MA. In vivo evidence for
Id4 regulating neural progenitor cell proliferation and differentiation.
Development,131, 5441-5448, 2004.
Liang Y, Diehn M, Watson N, Bollen AW, Aldape KD, Nicholas MK, Lamborn
KR, Berger MS, Botstein D, Brown PO, Israel MA. Gene expression
profiling reveals molecularly and clinically distinct subtypes of
glioblastomas multiforme. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 102 (16): 5814-5819,
2005.
Gaur AB, Jewell DA, Liang Y, Ridzon D, Moore JH, Chen C, Ambros VR,
Israel MA. Characterization of microRNA expression levels and their
biological correlates in human cancer cell lines. Cancer Research 67(6):
2456-68, 2007
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Mailing Address:
Norris Cotton Cancer Center
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
One Medical Center Drive
Lebanon, NH 03756
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