Projects per year
Personal profile
Personal profile
Christoforos Thomas, PhD, received his bachelor’s degree from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and pursued his doctoral training at the University of Ioannina Medical School in Greece (1998-2004) to study the redox regulation of cancer cell cycle progression. Dr. Thomas conducted postdoctoral research at Karolinska Institute in Sweden (2005-2009) to investigate the biology of estrogen receptors in cancer. He then joined the University of Houston’s Center of Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling as Research Assistant Professor (2010-2017) and after continuing as Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and the Abramson Cancer Center he was recruited to Houston Methodist Research Institute in February 2022.
Research interests
Dr. Thomas’s laboratory has focused on the following research:
- Investigating the mechanisms by which estrogen receptors (ERs) influence cancer initiation, progression and response to therapy. The lab has focused on interactions of ERs with p53, stress response and growth factor receptor signaling in breast and lung cancer.
- Delineating pathways that regulate ER expression in cells. Chromatin modifiers impacting transcription together with signaling kinases and ubiquitin proteasome pathway that control protein stability have been investigated as potential drivers of altered ER expression in malignant breast with the aim to identify novel factors with prognostic and therapeutic value.
- Exploring estrogen receptor beta (ERβ) as novel biomarker and therapeutic target in inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) that represents the most aggressive form of breast cancer. Associating ERβ with clinical phenotypes and evaluating ERβ agonists as anti-metastatic regimen in preclinical IBC models has been the focus of our studies.
- Studying the involvement of abnormal estrogen signaling in breast tumorigenesis in the context of defective p53 pathway using mouse models that mimic the pathology of Li-Fraumeni Syndrome (LFS) and breast cancer tissues from affected individuals.
- Determining how ER signaling influences breast cancer progression by altering the tumor microenvironment using novel mouse models of breast cancer with altered ER signaling.
Research Area Keywords
- Cancer
Fingerprint
- 1 Similar Profiles
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
-
Exploring the role of estrogen receptor beta in progression and metastasis of Inflammatory breast cancer
Thomas, C. (PI)
5/1/22 → 11/30/25
Project: Federal Funding Agencies
-
Exploring ER?mRNA-based therapy in aggressive forms of breast cancer
Thomas, C. (PI)
10/1/22 → 9/30/23
Project: State
-
Exploring the role of ER Beta in disease penetrance in individuals with Li- Fraumeni syndrome
Thomas, C. (PI)
5/1/22 → 12/31/24
Project: Federal Funding Agencies
-
Estrogen Signals through ERβ in Breast Cancer; What We Have Learned since the Discovery of the Receptor
Nagandla, H. & Thomas, C., May 3 2024, In: Receptors. 3, 2, p. 182–200 19 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
NOS inhibition sensitizes metaplastic breast cancer to alpelisib and taxane chemotherapy by reversing cJUN-mediated epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition.
Reddy, T. P., Puri, A., Guzman-Rojas, L., Thomas, C., Qian, W., Zhou, J., Zhao, H., Thaiparambil, J., Rosato, R. R., Chervo, M., Giese, N., Yam, C., Moulder, S. L., Piwnica-Worms, H., Meric-Bernstam, F., Mahboubi, B., Oo, A., Kim, B., Ayerbe, C. & Chang, J. C., Dec 30 2024, In: Nature Communications. 15, 10737Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
-
NOS inhibition sensitizes metaplastic breast cancer to PI3K inhibition and taxane therapy via c-JUN repression
Reddy, T., Puri, A., Guzman-Rojas, L., Thomas, C., Qian, W., Zhou, J., Zhao, H., Mahboubi, B., Oo, A., Cho, Y. J., Kim, B., Thaiparambil, J., Rosato, R., Martinez, K. O., Chervo, M. F., Ayerbe, C., Giese, N., Wink, D., Lockett, S. & Wong, S. & 7 others, , Dec 2024, In: Nature Communications. 15, 1, 10737.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access1 Scopus citations -
ERβ as a mediator of estrogen signaling in inflammatory breast cancer
Nagandla, H. & Thomas, C., Jun 12 2023, In: Oncotarget. 14, p. 576-578 3 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial › peer-review
Open Access -
Dll1-Mediated Notch Signaling Drives Tumor Cell Cross-talk with Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts to Promote Radioresistance in Breast Cancer
Nandi, A., Debnath, R., Nayak, A., To, T. K. J., Thacker, G., Reilly, M., Gumber, S., Karagounis, I., Li, N., Lengner, C. J., Haldar, M., Welm, A. L., Blanco, A. M., Thomas, C. & Chakrabarti, R., Oct 17 2022, In: Cancer research. 82, 20, p. 3718-3733 16 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
26 Scopus citations
Prizes
-
Houston Methodist Neal Cancer Center 2023 Innovation Award
Thomas, C. (Recipient), 2023
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)