Fred Bunz

Research Overview

Dr. Bunz’s research objective is to understand how stress-activated signaling pathways affect the cellular responses to anti-cancer therapy. A longstanding interest is p53, a central node within a complex network of DNA damage-response pathways involved in tumor suppression. Cancer associated p53 mutations impact the efficacy of DNA damage-based anticancer therapies, but mutant p53 proteins can also serve as targets for new immune-based therapies.  

Recent work in the lab is focused on understanding the mechanistic basis for p53 function, and on the development of therapeutic viral agents that can stimulate neoantigen-specific anti-cancer immune responses. The long-term goal is to better understand how current therapies work, and to develop new and improved cancer treatments.