Marcelo (Bento) Soares, Ph.D. is the Director of the Cancer Biology & Epigenomics Program at Children's Memorial Research Center, Professor of Pediatrics, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chicago, Illinois. This web site provides an introduction to the Soares Laboratory and personnel as well as information concerning their research interests, activities and recent publications.

Research Description:
Research in the Soares’ laboratory is aimed at investigations of the molecular basis of variability in clinical behavior of pediatric cancers, and the impact of global loss of methylation on tumorigenesis and genome stability. The fact that tumors of similar histopathology may differ so significantly in growth potential and aggressiveness makes an oncologist’s decision to expose a child to the toxicities and long-term consequences of cytotoxic chemotherapy rather challenging. Thus, a major goal of research in the Soares’ laboratory is the identification of molecular signatures in pediatric brain tumors that are predictive of clinical behavior. This work is conducted in collaboration with Dr. Stewart Goldman and Dr. Tadanori Tomita within the umbrella of the Falk Brain Tumor Center. Our strategy takes advantage of a novel technology for genome-wide analysis of CpG methylation, and a GMOD database and browser that we have implemented to facilitate identification of inter-dependent alterations in the genome, epigenome and/or transcriptome of pediatric brain tumors.