Cancer Biology Faculty

Primary Faculty

Arthur M. Mercurio, PhD  - Professor and Interim Chair
Mechanisms of carcinoma progression.

Eric Baehrecke, PhD - Professor
Cell death and autophagy.

Andreas Bergmann, PhD - Professor
Genetic control of programmed cell death (apoptosis) in Drosophilia.


Sharon Cantor, PhD  - Associate Professor, Director of the Cancer Biology Graduate Program
DNA repair and cancer.

Chung-Cheng Hsieh, ScD - Professor
Cancer epidemiology.

Michelle A. Kelliher, PhD  - Professor, Co-Director of the UMass Leukemia Program
Apoptosis and cancer.

Stephen Lyle, MD, PhD  - Associate Professor, Director of the UMass Cancer Center Tissue Bank
Stem cells and cancer.

Junhao Mao, PhD - Assistant Professor
Signaling pathways in cancer.

Leslie M. Shaw, PhD  - Associate Professor, Co-Director of the UMass Breast Cancer Program
Mechanisms of tumor metastasis.

Karl Simin, PhD  - Assistant Professor
Molecular Biology of Breast Cancer and Mouse Models.

Adjunct Professor

Irwin Leav, DVM - Professor

Affiliated Faculty

Lucio Castilla, PhD - Associate Professor, Program in Molecular Medicine
Genetics of Leukemia, Mouse Models.

Craig Ceol, PhD - Assistant Professor, Program in Molecular Medicine
Genetic regulators of Melanoma formation using the zebrafish.

David Geurtin, PhD - Assistant Professor, Program in Molecular Medicine
Signal Transduction in Development and Cancer.


JeanMarie Houghton, PhD, MD - Associate Professor, Gastroenterology
Host immune response to Helicobacter pylori infection, immune modulation of gastric cell signaling and growth regulation in response to Helicobacter infection.

Stephen Jones, PhD - Professor, Cell Biology
Signaling Pathways in Development and Tumor Suppression.

Brian Lewis, PhD - Associate Professor, Program in Molecular Medicine
Molecular Genetics of Pancreatic and Liver Cancers.

Peter Newburger, MD  - Professor, Pediatrics, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology. Vice-Chair, Department of Pediatrics, Director, Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology
Molecular basis of phagocyte function and selenoprotein biosynthesis.

Alonzo Ross, PhD - Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
PTEN phosphatase and tumor suppressor, CNS stem cells and neural tumors.


Merav Socolovsky, PhD, MBBS - Assistant Professor, Pediatrics
Molecular mechanisms regulating the homeostasis of hematopoietic progenitros.

Janet Stavnezer, PhD - Professor, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology
Mechanism and Regulation of Antibody Class Switch Recombination.

Research Faculty

Yun Fan, PhD - Research Assistant Professor

Hira Goel, PhD - Research Assistant Professor

Hoi Pang Low, PhD - Research Assistant Professor

Paul Mak, PhD - Research Assistant Professor

Vishva Sharma, PhD - Instructor

Fang Xia, PhD - Instructor