Faculty
Dr. Mark Pershouse
Associate Professor
Email:mark.pershouse@umontana.edu
Phone: (406) 243-4769
After completing undergraduate work in biology at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Dr. Pershouse earned a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences under the guidance of Professor Elton Stubblefield at the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Houston. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center under the supervision of Professor Peter Steck, and a brief postdoctoral associate position at Baylor College of Medicine with Drs Craig Chinault and Allan Bradley, he joined the faculty at The University of Montana as a Research Assistant Professor in September of 2000, was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2002, and to Associate Professor in 2007.
Research Statement
The Pershouse lab focuses on the mechanisms utilized by cancer cells to evade normal growth control. His lab has been studying the role of tumor suppressor genes in various human cancer models. Due to our proximity to Libby, Montana, there is a great deal of interest in mesotheliomas, a tumor tightly linked to asbestos exposure. This study has been expanded to include tumors such as meningiomas, with a similar pattern of gene loss. These studies aim to expand our ability to detect tumor formation at an earlier, more treatable stage, as well as to provide scientists with better targets for effective therapeutics. Dr. Pershouse was a member of one of the competing labs that discovered the PTEN tumor suppressor gene, a gene altered in a high percentage of human tumors.
The laboratory has also begun a new study aimed at providing oncologists with vital information on American Indian genetics that will allow the prediction of chemotherapy drug response. This technology is becoming widely used in the general population, but several key pieces of data are necessary for application in Indian country. This is one of the first studies to target American Indian pharmacogenetics in the country.
Recent Publications
Pershouse MA, Smartt AM, Schwanke CM, and Putnam EA. Differences in gene expression profiles from asbestos-treated SPARC-null and wild type mouse lungs. Genomics in press 2009.
Bunderson Schelvan M, Erbe A, Schwanke CM, and Pershouse MA. Suppression of the MDM4 gene causes changes in cell cycle control in a human mesothelial cell line responsive to UV exposure. Accepted with revisions, Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis 2009.
Pershouse MA, Bunderson Schelvan M, Schwanke CM. (2009) Omics Information Resource, a chapter from Information Resources in Toxicology (4th Edition) Edited by Wexler, Hakkinen, Mohapatra & Stoss, National Library of Medicine. Published by Elsevier.
Pershouse MA, Bunderson Schelvan M, Erbe A, Schwanke CM, Putnam EA. (2009) Toxicoinformatics Information Resource, a chapter from Information Resources in Toxicology (4th Edition) Edited by Wexler, Hakkinen, Mohapatra & Stoss, National Library of Medicine. Published by Elsevier.
Putnam EA, Smartt A, Brezinski M, Groves A, Schwanke CM, and Pershouse MA. (2008) Gene expression changes after exposure to Six-mix in a mouse model. Journal of Immunotoxicology 5(2): 139-144.
Levya FJ, Pershouse MA, Holian A. Modified low density lipoproteins binding requires a lysine cluster region in the murine macrophage scavenger receptor class A type II. Mol Biol Rep. 2009 Sep 23. [Epub ahead of print]. PMID: 19774489