Our Science – Casellas Website

Rafael Casellas, Ph.D.

Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Genetics Adjunct Investigator National Cancer Institute Building 10, Room 9N252 10 Center Drive Bethesda, MD 20892 Phone:   301-402-7858 Fax:   301-402-7110 E-Mail:   casellar@mail.nih.gov

Biography

Dr. Rafael Casellas was born in Buenos Aires and lived in Geneva, Paris, and Helsinki before coming to the United States where he received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Brigham Young University in 1996. He received a Ph.D. in Molecular Immunology from the Rockefeller University in 2002. There, he worked under Dr. Michel Nussenzweig studying the role of immunoglobulin gene expression and recombination in the establishment of B cell tolerance and peripheral activation. From 2002 to 2003 he did postdoctoral training with Nobel Laureaute David Baltimore at the California Institute of Technology. There Dr. Casellas continued his molecular studies of B cell activation and developed new mouse gene targeting techniques. In December 2003, Dr. Casellas moved to the Molecular Immunology Branch of the NIAMS as a tenure-track investigator to form the Genomic Integrity and Immunity Group. Dr. Casellas is also serving as an adjunct investigator at the Center for Cancer Research, NCI.

Research

The mechanisms that maintain the stability of the mammalian genome are a major focus of our laboratory. Mature B lymphocytes are an ideal system to address these questions since upon activation during the immune response, B cells undergo class switch recombination and somatic hypermutation at their immunoglobulin genes. These genetic events require the molecular interplay between the transcription machinery, chromatin remodeling complexes, a plethora of DNA repair enzymes, and a B cell specific factor known as AID. Although much has been learned about these individual protein complexes, to date it has not been possible to unravel how their activity is orchestrated within the cell nucleus in a living cell. We are elucidating the interplay between these systems by using a combination of state of the art confocal microscopy, video imaging, and bioinformatic techniques.
We are also interested in understanding the etiology of B cell tumor development. Using a plasmacytoma mouse model we are dissecting by means of transgenesis, gene targeting, genetics, and genomics approaches the details of cMyc oncogene deregulation through chromosomal translocations to the immunoglobulin loci.

This page was last updated on 10/3/2009.