Research Summary
Dr. Sfanos and her lab study the cellular and molecular pathology of prostate disease. She is specifically interested in agents that may lead to chronic inflammation in the prostate. Ongoing studies in the lab are aimed at understanding the influence of prostate infections and inflammation on prostate disease including prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). The laboratory also focuses on the influence of the microbiome on prostate cancer development, progression, and/or treatment.
Dr. Sfanos’ previous studies have demonstrated the presence of multiple microbial species in the prostate of cancer patients and, importantly, many of the organisms identified are consistent with genera associated with inflammation-associated conditions including bacterial prostatitis or urinary tract infections. She works very closely with both genitourinary pathologists as well as epidemiologists in an effort to correlate discoveries in the laboratory with prostate cancer risk as well as disease pathology.
Lab
Lab Website: The Sfanos Lab
Selected Publications
Sfanos K.S., Bruno T.C., Maris C.H., Xu L., Thoburn C.J., De Marzo A.M., Meeker A.K., Isaacs W.B., Drake C.G. Phenotypic analysis of prostate-infiltrating lymphocytes reveals TH17 and Treg skewing. Clinical Cancer Research. 2008; 14: 3254-3261.
Sfanos K.S., Wilson B.A., De Marzo A.M., Isaacs W.B. Acute inflammatory proteins constitute the organic matrix of prostatic corpora amylacea and calculi in men with prostate cancer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) U.S.A. 2009; 106: 3443-3448.
Yu S.H., Zheng Q., Esopi D., Luo J., Macgregor-Das A., Antonarakis E.S., Vessella R., Morrissey C., De Marzo A.M., Sfanos K.S. A paracrine role for IL-6 in prostate cancer patients: Lack of production by primary or metastatic tumor cells. Cancer Immunology Research. 2015; 3: 1175-1184.
Shrestha E., White J.R., Yu S.H., Kulac I., Ertunc O., De Marzo A.M., Yegnasubramanian S., Mangold L.A., Partin A.W., Sfanos K.S. Profiling the urinary microbiome in men with positive versus negative biopsies for prostate cancer. Journal of Urology. 2018; 199(1): 161-171.
Sfanos K.S., Markowski M.C., Peiffer L.B.,Ernst S.E.,White J.R., Pienta K.J., Antonarakis E.S., Ross A.E. Compositional differences in gastrointestinal microbiota in prostate cancer patients treated with androgen axis-targeted therapies. Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases. 2018; 21: 539-548.
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