Jason Hanna

Title:

Assistant Professor

PhD Granting Institution:

Yale University

Contact:

Email Address: hannaja@purdue.edu
Office Phone: 765-496-1771

Primary Training Group:

Cancer Biology

Research Areas:

We study the initiation, progression, and metastasis of vascular sarcomas with a focus on the role of microRNAs.

Current Projects:

My lab studies microRNAs and angiosarcomas which are aggressive vascular sarcomas from blood and lymphatic endothelial cells. Despite the extremely poor prognosis for patients, the genetic drivers and molecular mechanisms of these tumors remain unclear. In recent work, we found that Dicer1 and microRNAs may function as critical tumor suppressors. We have gone on to generate additional tumor models investigating other genes known to be altered in patients. We leverage these genetic models to study tumor initiation, progression, and metastasis in vivo and in cell line models. We aim to 1) discover the genetic drivers and critical microRNAs involved in angiosarcoma development, 2) identify the key mediators of angiosarcoma metastasis, and 3) design and evaluate precision therapeutics to benefit patients of this devastating and understudied disease.