Marsha A. Moses, PhD

Department	Vascular Biology Program
Hospital Title	Director Vascular Biology Program
Academic Title	Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor Harvard Medical School Department of Surgery
Phone	617-919-2207
Fax	617-730-0231
Email	Marsha Moses
Location	300 Longwood Avenue Karp-12.214 Boston MA 02115

Research overview

The Moses Lab has had a long-standing interest in identifying and characterizing the biochemical and molecular mechanisms underlying tumor progression, from the angiogenic switch through metastasis. Dr. Moses and her group have also discovered a number of angiogenesis inhibitors, some of which are in pre-clinical development for use against a variety of cancers.

Significant efforts are also now underway in the Moses lab to identify the genes, and the proteins that they encode, that are responsible for the escape from tumor dormancy. This critical checkpoint, during which time a tiny benign, avascular tumor acquires the vascular phenotype, is a prerequisite for subsequent tumor growth and progression. The Moses Lab has recently identified and validated a number of genes which are differentially expressed during the angiogenic switch and is currently developing molecular and biochemical interventions to regulate the switch by targeting some of these genes.

To complement these studies, Dr. Moses has established a Proteomics Initiative that has now led to the discovery of a panel of urinary cancer biomarkers that not only predict disease status and stage in cancer patients but are also sensitive and specific markers of disease progression and therapeutic efficacy of cancer drugs. A number of these urine tests are commercially available as potential cancer diagnostics and prognostics.
 

About Marsha A. Moses

Marsha A. Moses received a PhD from Boston University and completed a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at Children's Hospital Boston and MIT. She is the Julia Dyckman Andrus Professor at Harvard Medical School and the Director of the Vascular Biology Program at Children's Hospital Boston. Dr. Moses was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of the United States in 2008. She is the recipient of a number of NIH and foundation grants. Dr. Moses also received Harvard Medical School's A. Clifford Barger Mentoring Award in 2003 and the Joseph B. Martin Dean's Leadership Award for the Advancement of Women Faculty in 2009.
 

Representative publications

• Roy R, Rodig S, Bielenberg D, Zurakowski D, Moses MA. ADAM12 transmembrane and secreted isoforms promote breast tumor growth and metastasis. J Biol Chem 2011 Apr 14; Epub ahead of print. PMCID: In Process.
   
• Fernandez CA, Roy R, Lee S, Yang J, Panigrahy D, Van Vliet KJ, Moses MA. The anti-angiogenic peptide, Loop 6, binds IGF-IR. J Biol Chem. 2010 Oct 12; Epub ahead of print. PMID: 20940305
   
• Yang J., Bielenberg D.R., Rodig S.J., Doiron R., Clifton M.C., Kung A.L., Strong R.K., Zurakowski D., Moses M.A. (2009) Lipocalin 2 promotes breast cancer progression. PNAS, 106(10):3913-8.
   
• Harper J., Yan L., Louriero R., Wu I., Fang J., D'Amore P., Moses M.A. (2007) Repression of VEGF expression by the zinc finger transcription factor ZNF24. Cancer Res., 67(18):8736-41.
   
• Pories S.E., Zurakowski D., Roy R., Lamb C.C., Raza S., Exarhopoulos A., Scheib R.G., Schumer S., Lenahan C., Borges V., Louis G.W., Anand A., Isakovich N., Hirschfield-Bartek J., Wewer U., Lotz M.M., Moses M.A. (2008) Urinary metalloproteinases: noninvasive biomarkers of breast cancer risk assessment. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev., 17(5):1034-42.
   
• Smith E.R., Manfredi M., Scott R.M., Black P., Moses M.A. (2007) A recurrent craniopharyngioma illustrates the potential usefulness of urinary matrix metalloproteinases as noninvasive biomarkers: case report. Neurosurgery, 60(6):E1148-9.