Asfar Azmi
Office Address
Karmanos Cancer Institute
4100 John R, HWCRC 740.1
Detroit MI 48201
Mentoring
Department
Oncology
Research Interests
• Pancreatic Cancer
• Nuclear protein transport biology in cancer
• Novel therapeutic avenues in mutant KRAS pathway
• NAD Signaling
• Animal models in translational drug discovery
Research Description
Dr. Asfar Azmi is a Associate Professor of Oncology at Wayne State University School of Medicine. He is the Leader of Molecular Therapeutics Program as well as the Director of Pancreas Cancer Research at the NCI designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit Michigan. He has a record of accomplishment in the area of drug discovery research. Dr. Azmi made fundamental discoveries on the role of aberrant nuclear protein transport in pancreatic cancer development and drug resistance. He has made significant contributions on pre-clinical and early phase development of new drugs for pancreatic cancer and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors particularly, nuclear export inhibitor selinexor and KRAS pathway targeted therapies. Work done by his team led to the FDA approval of selinexor in several tumor indications. His lab uses high throughput technologies such as RNA-seq, sn-RNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics in patient derived tumors and genetically engineered mouse models to identify epigenetic and regulatory mechanisms of XPO1 and design novel drug combinations. Dr. Azmi's group is also developing novel drugs against mutant KRAS pathway proteins. His team has discovered the role of Rho GTPase effector protein p21-activated kinase 4 (PAK4) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) biosynthesis pathway rate limiting enzyme nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT) in promoting tumor growth, desmoplasia and drug resistance in cellular and patient derived tumor models. His ongoing projects are focused on developing ways to favorably alter the pancreatic tumor microenvironment, making them more accessible to chemotherapeutic drugs. His lab is also exploring how targeting KRAS pathway proteins and NAD signaling can enhance immunotherapy strategies in therapy resistant cancers. Dr. Azmi has published more than 150 peer reviewed articles in prestigious journals such as Gastroenterology, Oncogene, Clinical Cancer Research, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology and Seminars in Cancer Biology. He is the editor of several books on drug discovery topics. Dr. Azmi is the recipient of NIH MERIT award, and young investigator awards from American Pancreatic Association, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and American Society of Hematology (ASH). He is the recipient of Academy of Scholars Award from Wayne State University, Kales Endowed Faculty Award for Innovative Cancer Research and Heroes of Cancer Award from Karmanos Cancer Institute. His lab is continuously funded by NIH and pharma industry.