Research

Basic Science Laboratory of Adult Urology

• Maintains a state of the art laboratory that interacts with the clinical programs and faculty.
• Provides an environment for residents, fellows and graduate students to participate in modern research.
• Is engaged in basic research that is focused on developing knowledge that supports translational research of relevance to clinical problems.

Dr. Hurst's laboratory specializes in four main areas of research, including:

1. Tissue-level mechanisms regulating the malignant phenotype in urologic malignancies.
   We seek to understand mechanisms of epigenetic and cell-matrix interactions in differentiation of the urinary bladder and prostatic epithelia and their roles in carcinogenic progression and the process of invasion and metastasis. We also seek to extend this basic work to the practical problems of drug discovery for chemoprevention and therapy. Current work involves growth of tumors in 3-dimensional artificial matrix to identify mechanisms for suppression or progression of the malignant phenotype, including drug testing, and for mechanisms of invasion and metastasis.
   
   
2. Mechanisms of bladder defenses and physiology of diseases resulting from failure of bladder defenses.
   The normal bladder maintains sophisticated macromolecular defenses on the epithelial surface to inhibit penetration of urine. Among these are proteoglycans that we have shown coat the surface heavily and exclude salts and proteases from the surface. Current work seeks to identify the mechanisms by which these proteoglycans are lost in diseases such as interstitial cystitis and how pharmacologic intervention or gene therapy might restore the bladder's defenses.
   
   
3. Biomarkers for early detection of cancer risk.
   Understanding basic mechanisms of carcinogenesis and progression supports discovery of biomarkers that can be used to target early interventions prior to development of genetic instability and more effective therapies. Our work has identified high-level biomarkers that are independent of the particular genetic pathway of carcinogenesis and therefore have high sensitivity and specificity and which can be used to target therapy to individuals at highest risk within a population.
   
   
4. Systems Biology and Functional Genomics.
   With modern microarrays and proteomics, the transcription of substantial fractions of the genome can be studied and the protein-level modifications can be investigated. Together with novel bioinformatics, complex biological systems involving interacting gene and protein networks can be investigated.