PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Jihong Ma, M.D. - Research Assistant Professor of Pathology Office: S447 BST 200 Lothrop Street Pittsburgh, PA 15261 Email: jim8@pitt.edu Tel: 412-648-8072 Fax: 412-648-1916    RESEARCH: My recent research projects include two major projects. First project is: to explore the mechanism of aberrant HGF expression in human cancers. We mainly focus on (1) Identifying the mutation in human HGF gene and studying the mechanism of the mutation causing HGF aberrant expression in human cancers. (2) Developing a potential genetic marker in the diagnosis and prognosis of human cancers in early stage. (3) Exploring the therapeutic strategy in treatment of human cancers that harbor HGF gene mutations. Second project is: to explore the novel mechanism that Met inhibits caspase-3 and contributes to cell survival. We found a new caspase-3 cleave site (we call it Death Defying Domain, or DDD) on Met, we mainly focus on studying the mechanism how this DDD site inhibits apoptosis and promotes cell survival. PUBLICATIONS: Ma J, DeFrances M, Zou C, Johnson C, Ferrell R, Zarnegar R. Somatic mutation and functional polymorphism of a novel regulatory element in the HGF gene promoter causes its aberrant expression in human breast cancer. J. Clin. Invest., 2009, 3: 478-479. Zou C, Ma J, Wang X, Guo L, Zhu Z, Stoops J, Eaker A, Johnson C, Strom S, Michalopoulos G, DeFrances M & Zarnegar R. Lack of Fas antagonism by Met in human fatty liver disease. Nature Medicine, 2007, 13: 1078-1085.