Nallasivam Palanisamy, PhD

Dr. Palanisamy is a member of the Henry Ford Cancer Urological Oncology Research Program, specializing in prostate cancer, cancer genomics, molecular cytogenetics/molecular pathology and urology.

His research focuses on the discovery and characterization of gene fusions in cancer and understanding their role in carcinogenesis from a translational research perspective. Using genomic technologies such as high-density array comparative genomic hybridization, advanced molecular cytogenetic technologies including FISH, CGH, spectral karyotyping, gene expression microarrays, and next generation sequencing technology, his laboratory investigates the transcriptional and genomic architectures of solid cancer genome. In-depth analysis of genomic amplifications provided an unprecedented view and identified rare gene fusions formed at the boundaries of amplification and deletions.

He also is a pioneer of the application of next generation sequencing technology for the discovery of new recurrent gene fusions in cancer. The primary goal of this approach is to identify novel gene fusions specific for each cancer type. Further, he is interested in applying the newly developed target capture of all human exons and resequencing approach to identify disease causing gene mutations. Employing the next generation sequencing approach with particular emphasis on RNA-seq provided a unique opportunity to interrogate the cancer transcriptome in an unbiased manner to identify novel gene fusions, alternative transcripts, non-coding RNA, SNPs, micro RNA and expressed pseudogenes not detectable by gene expression microarray analysis.

Recently, the team discovered a new recurrent gene fusion in a subset of ETS negative prostate cancer. Long-term research goals are to conduct advanced research applying the next generation sequencing technology for an integrated analysis using data from RNA and DNA processing, genotyping, chip sequence, gene expression, copy number analysis for variations and rearrangements and methylation analysis to understand the genetic complexity of cancer genome in a comprehensive manner. This work will lead to the identification of novel cancer biomarkers for routine diagnosis and treatment follow up.

In addition, during his tenure as the founding Director of Research and Development at Cancer Genetics Inc., he introduced novel approaches in FISH probe development for the diagnosis of recurrent chromosome translocations in cancer. This work was supported by three Phase I and one Phase II SBIR grant applications funded by NCI. Two out of three patent applications on novel probe development approaches were granted.

Other major accomplishments in prostate cancer research include the discovery of recurrent RAF gene fusions in ETS negative prostate cancer, development of new approaches for the molecular profiling of prostate cancer which lead to the identification of a new subset of prostate cancer with dual ERG/SPINK1 rearrangements and dual ETS rearrangements with ERG and ETV1 rearrangements in two independent tumor foci and identification of pseudogenes as a new class of prostate cancer biomarker.

Research Interests:

• Molecular cloning and characterization of recurrent chromosome translocations in leukemia, lymphoma and solid tumors
• Development of diagnostic reagents based on fluorescence in situ hybridization, immunohistochemistry and RNA in situ hybridization methods for recurrent chromosome translocations and gene amplifications in various cancer types
• Personalized medicine
• Biomarker discovery through application of next generation sequencing technology
• Non-coding RNA, pseudogenes as new biomarkers in prostate cancer
• Diagnostic methods for screening prostate cancer markers
• Application of high throughput technologies in genome research for the discovery of gene fusions in cancer
• Cancer genomics
• Molecular cytogenetics
• Next generation sequencing
• Prostate cancer
• RNA in situ hybridization