Riccardo Dalla-Favera, MD

The general goal of this laboratory is the elucidation of the genetic steps involved in the pathogenesis of cancer and of human lymphoid malignancies in particular. Specific lines of research are focused on: (1) studying the mechanism of activation of the c-myc and Bcl-6 oncogenes in human lymphoid malignancies carrying chromosomal translocations involving these loci; (2) identifying other oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes involved in the pathogenesis of lymphoid malignancies; (3) testing the biological role of these genes on the growth and differentiation of lymphoid cells using in vitro B-cell transformation assays and transgenic mouse technologies; (4) developing assays for the use of rearrangements of oncogenes and other lymphoid specific genes as markers of diagnostic and prognostic value in human cancer.

Selected Publications:

• Ye, B.H., Lista, F., LoCoco, F., Knowles, D.M., Offit, K., Chaganti, R.S.K., and Dalla-Favera, R. Alterations of a zinc-finger encoding gene, BCL-6, in diffuse large-cell lymphoma. Science. 262:747-750 (1993).
• Gu, W., Bhatia K., Magrath I.T., Dang C.V., and Dalla-Favera R. Binding and suppression of myc transcriptional transactivation domain by p107. Science. 264:251-254 (1994).
• Offit, K., LoCoco, F., Louie, D., Parsa, N., Leung, D., Portlock, C., Ye, B., Lista, F., Filippa, A., Rosenbaum, A., Ladanyi, M.,Jhanwar, S., Dalla-Favera, R., and Chaganti, R.S.K. Rearrangement of the BCL6 gene as a prognostic marker in diffuse large cell lymphoma. New Eng J. Med. 331:74-80 (1994).
• Ye, BH., Chaganti, S., Chang, C-C., Niu, H., Corradini, P., Chaganti, R.S.K., and Dalla-Favera, R. Chromosomal translocations cause deregulated BCL6 expression by promoter substitution in B cell lymphoma. EMBO J. 14:6209-6217 (1995).
• Ye, B.H., Cattoretti, G., Zhang, J., Hawe, N., Shen, Q., Orrazi, A., Nouri-Shirazi, M., Chaganti, R.S.K., Stall, A.M., Pandolfi, P.P., and Dalla-Favera, R. The BCL-6 proto-oncogene controls germinal-centre formation and Th2-type inflammation. Nature Genetics. 16:161-170 (1997).