Rocco Lab

Intra-tumor heterogeneity, the differences among cancer cells within a tumor, lies at the core of cancer treatment resistance. Even if only a single cancer cell can escape from the primary tumor site or become resistant to radiation, standard or targeted chemotherapy, or immunotherapy, that cell might regrow a tumor after therapy removes all the other cancer cells. Studies led by Dr. Rocco showed that higher intra-tumor heterogeneity is associated with worse outcome in head and neck cancer. The Rocco Lab thus explores all aspects of intra-tumor heterogeneity in an attempt to develop new approaches that can turn it from a barrier to therapeutic success into a target for therapy.

Dr. Rocco’s group recently showed that higher expression of estrogen receptor alpha in tumors, known to be important in breast cancer, is related to better outcomes in both male and female head and neck cancer patients who are treated with a combination of radiation and chemotherapy. This surprising result has led his laboratory to investigate the roles that estrogen signaling plays in head and neck cancer and whether estrogen-receptor signaling could provide a novel target for therapy.

Dr. Rocco began his translational research laboratory in 1999 at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). His NIH-supported laboratory there developed the first simple and general way to measure intra-tumor heterogeneity and used it to show that high heterogeneity was associated with poor outcome in head and neck cancer. He moved his laboratory to Ohio State in 2015.

The faculty, students and staff of the Rocco Lab have a wide range of expertise ranging from cellular and molecular biology to translational and clinical research. Although the laboratory focuses on head and neck cancer, Dr. Rocco’s clinical specialty, its work has already helped to advance research on other types of cancer. The laboratory thus provides a balanced mix of basic and translational science projects that offers many unique research opportunities. Current work in the laboratory includes:

• Elucidating the controls on propagation of normal cells that they lose when they become cancerous
• Understanding the early steps in tumor formation and how they lead to development of heterogeneous tumors
• Learning how genetic differences develop and are maintained among cancer cells in a tumor, providing a reservoir of cancer cells that might be resistant to particular therapies
• Investigating the role of estrogen-receptor signaling in head and neck cancer
• Studying the implications of this work for how to provide the best type of therapy for individual patients

To support this work, the Rocco Lab has begun a Head and Neck Tumor Heterogeneity (HNTH) initiative in collaboration with the Total Cancer Care® Program at the OSUCCC – James. After obtaining permission from a head and neck cancer patient, the HNTH group starts with fresh tumor tissue from the operating room and uses several different ways to obtain and propagate living cells from the tumor for research on intra-tumor heterogeneity and personalized cancer therapy.

Graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and medical students interested in the Rocco Lab should contact Gaila Konneker, administrative manager for head and neck cancer research, at Gaila.Konneker@osumc.edu.

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