Professor of Urology
Research Description
David Frazier Jarrard, MD, is a tenured Professor of Urology and an Associate Director at the UW Carbone Cancer Center. He trained at the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins. His laboratory studies clinically relevant epigenetic factors underlying cancer development and progression is part of the campus-wide Epigenetics consortium. They were the first to identify that altered genomic imprinting with aging occurs and this increases the risk of prostate cancer development. Alterations in CTCF, an insulator protein, underlies these epigenetic alterations and links diet and oxidative stress to cancer progression. This epigenetic field effect arises in the histologically normal prostate tissue of men with prostate cancer and serves as a clinical diagnostic marker for the presence of prostate cancer.
Another area of research investigation involves the activation of cellular senescence in cancer as a novel therapeutic and prognostic approach. Our lab was the first to recognize that androgen removal, a common treatment in advanced prostate cancer, leads to senescence. We have recently recognized that metabolically targeting these resistant cells may improve cancer outcomes.