Translating the Spectrum of Sex Differences in Cancer Biology into Sex-adapted Treatments



Seminar Title: Translating the Spectrum of Sex Differences in Cancer Biology into Sex-adapted Treatments

Presenter: Dr. Joshua B. Rubin, Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine

Dr. Rubin is a Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He is originally from Ardsley, New York and is a graduate of Yale University. Dr. Rubin went on to receive his MD and PhD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Following graduation, he completed a residency in Pediatrics at Boston’s Children’s Hospital and a fellowship in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School where he trained in pediatric neuro-oncology with Dr. Mark Kieran. At the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Dr. Rubin completed his post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Rosalind Segal.

In 2003, Dr. Rubin was recruited to Washington University where he established his research lab and co-founded the Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Program at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. In the clinic, his research activities include many therapeutic clinical trials and a significant focus on understanding the basis for cognitive deficits after treatment for pediatric brain tumors. The focus in his laboratory is on links between normal brain development and the genesis of brain tumors, especially those aspects of development that render males more vulnerable to brain tumors than females, and the development of novel therapeutics.

Talk Summary: While sex differences in cancer risk and survival are obvious, translation of these differences into sex-adapted treatments remains elusive. Central to the challenge is that cancer phenotypes, like sex differences in height, exist on a spectrum with two highly overlapping distributions of male and female values. Thus, sex-adapted treatments are not likely to be dichotomous male- versus female- specific approaches, and more likely to target an individual’s unique mix of male- and female- biased biology. In this talk, we will discuss using whole transcriptomes to define an individual patient’s admixture of male and female biology for the purpose of personalized sex-adapted treatment strategies.