Education
- Ph.D., The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, 2008
- B.S., Kansas State University, 2001
Biography
Terry Jo Shackleford, Ph.D., received her B.S. in Biochemistry from Kansas State University. For her graduate work, she joined the Department of Systems Biology at MD Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC) through the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Her graduate work focused on the role of the Jun-activating-binding-protein 1 (Jab1) in breast cancer which is overexpressed in breast cancer. She conducted studies to understand Jab1 expression through characterization of the Jab1 promoter. This work revealed a novel mechanism whereby Src/Stat3 and IL-6/Stat3 signaling upregulated Jab1 expression in breast cancer cell lines.
After completing her doctoral work, she worked in the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck at MDACC as a grants program manager. Following her time at MDACC, she worked for VWR, a life science company, for two years before beginning a postdoctoral fellowship at the Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Center at the University of Texas Health at San Antonio.
As a postdoctoral trainee, she focused on pediatric sarcomas and mechanisms of resistance to insulin-like growth factor-1 receptor (IGF-1R) targeted therapies. Recently, monoclonal antibodies targeting IGF-1R have shown promise in a limited number of sarcoma patients. However, in the clinical trials testing a monoclonal antibody to IGF-1R in these patients many patients demonstrate intrinsic resistance, although a few patients had dramatic and sometimes sustained responses. This project focused on uncovering mechanisms of intrinsic and acquired resistance to IGF-1R targeted therapies in pediatric sarcomas
Shackleford joined the faculty of St. Mary’s University in August 2018 and continues to participate in research involving undergraduates. Her current research interests remain in the area of cancer biology while focusing on uncovering potential mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapy in pediatric sarcomas and finding activated signaling pathways which may serve as potential targets for potent multi-target combination therapy.
Publications
Shackleford TJ, Hariharan S, Phelps D, Bid H, Houghton PJ. Intrinsic and Acquired Resistance to Antibodies Targeting the Type-I Insulin-like Growth Factor Receptor in Sarcoma Cells derived from childhood sarcoma. In progress
Dowless MS, Lowery CD, Shackleford TJ, Renschler M, Stephens JR, Flack R, Blosser W, Gupta S, Stewart J, Webster Y, Dempsey J, VanWye AB, Ebert PJ, Iversen P, Olsen JB, Gong X, Buchanan SG, Houghton PJ, Stancato LF. Abemaciclib is Active in Preclinical Models of Ewing’s Sarcoma via Multi-pronged Regulation of Cell Cycle, DNA Methylation, and Interferon Pathway Signaling. Clin Cancer Res. 2018 Aug 21.
Heymach JV, Shackleford TJ, Tran HT, Yoo SY, Do KA, Wergin M, Saintigny P, Vollmer RT, Polascik TJ, Snyder DC, Ruffin MT 4th, Yan S, Dewhirst M, Kunnumakkara AB, Aggarwal BB, Demark-Wahnefried W. Effect of low-fat diets on plasma levels of NF-kB-regulated inflammatory cytokines and angiogenic factors in men with prostate cancer. Cancer Prev Res. 2011 Oct;4(10):1590-8.
Shackleford TJ, Zhang Q, Tian L, Vu TT, Korapati AL, Baumgartner AM, Le XF, Liao WS, Claret FX. Stat3 and CCAAT/enhancer binding protein beta (C/EBP-beta) regulate Jab1/CSN5 expression in mammary carcinoma cells. Breast Cancer Res. 2011 Jun 20;13(3):R65.
Shackleford TJ, Claret FX. JAB1/CSN5: a new player in cell cycle control and cancer. Cell Div. 2010 Oct 18;5:26.
Tian L, Peng G, Parant JM, Leventaki V, Drakos E, Zhang Q, Parker-Thornburg J, Shackleford TJ, Dai H, Lin SY, Lozano G, Rassidakis GZ, Claret FX. Essential roles of Jab1 in cell survival, spontaneous DNA damage and DNA repair. Oncogene. 2010 Nov 18;29(46):6125-37.
Zhang Q, Tian L, Mansouri A, Korapati AL, Johnson TJ, Claret FX. Inducible expression of a degradation-resistant form of p27Kip1 causes growth arrest and apoptosis in breast cancer cells. FEBS Lett. 2005 Jul 18;579(18):3932-40.
Spurgers KB, Coombes KR, Meyn RE, Gold DL, Logothetis CJ, Johnson TJ, McDonnell TJ. A comprehensive assessment of p53-responsive genes following adenoviral-p53 gene transfer in Bcl-2-expressing prostate cancer cells. Oncogene. 2004 Mar 4;23(9):1712-23.
Zhu Y, Johnson TJ, Myers AA, Kanost MR. Identification by subtractive suppression hybridization of bacteria-induced genes expressed in Manduca sexta fat body. Insect Biochem Mol Biol. 2003 May;33(5):541-59.