Publications

These publications showcase Dr. Alicea’s contributions to the cancer field, reflecting work from different stages of her research journey:

Johnston AC*, Alicea GM*, Lee CC, Patel PV, Hanna EA, Vaz E, Forjaz A, Wan Z, Nair PR, Lim Y, Chen T, Du W, Kim D, Nichakawade TD, Rebecca VW, Bonifant CL, Fan R, Kiemen AL, Wu PH, Wirtz D. Engineering self-propelled tumor-infiltrating CAR T cells using synthetic velocity receptors. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2024 Mar 26:2023.12.13.571595. doi: 10.1101/2023.12.13.571595. PMID: 38168186; PMCID: PMC10760159. * Co-Firstauthor. Under review.

Alicea GM, Patel P, Portuallo ME, Fane ME, Wei M, Chhabra Y, Dixit A, Carey AE, Wang V, Rocha MR, Behera R, Speicher DW, Tang HY, Kossenkov AV, Rebecca VW, Wirtz D, Weeraratna AT. Age-Related Increases in IGFBP2 Increase Melanoma Cell Invasion and Lipid Synthesis. Cancer Res Commun. 2024 Aug 1;4(8):1908-1918. doi: 10.1158/2767-9764.CRC-23-0176. PMID: 39007351; PMCID: PMC11295880.

Jagirdar K, Portuallo ME, Wei M, Wilhide M, Bravo Narula JA, Robertson BM, Alicea GM, Aguh C, Xiao M, Godok T, Fingerman D, Brown GS, Herlyn M, Elad VM, Guo X, Toska E, Zabransky DJ, Wubbenhorst B, Nathanson KL, Kwatra S, Goyal Y, Ji H, Liu Q, Rebecca VW. ERK hyperactivation serves as a unified mechanism of escape in intrinsic and acquired CDK4/6 inhibitor resistance in acral lentiginous melanoma. Oncogene. 2024 Feb;43(6):395-405. doi: 10.1038/s41388-023-02900-6. Epub 2023 Dec 8. PMID: 38066089; PMCID: PMC10837073.

Alicea GM, Villanueva J, Webster MR, Rebecca VW. Progress in melanoma treatment: Patient’s perspectives. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 2023 Nov;36(6):594-601. doi: 10.1111/pcmr.13138. Epub 2023 Oct 11. PMID: 37819777; PMCID: PMC10896641.

Harmange G, Hueros RAR, Schaff DL, Emert B, Saint-Antoine M, Kim LC, Niu Z, Nellore S, Fane ME, Alicea GM, Weeraratna AT, Simon MC, Singh A, Shaffer SM. Author Correction: Disrupting cellular memory to overcome drug resistance. Nat Commun. 2024 May 20;15(1):4264. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-48797-x. Erratum for: Nat Commun. 2023 Nov 6;14(1):7130. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-41811-8. PMID: 38769307; PMCID: PMC11106060.

Portuallo ME, Lu DY, Alicea GM, Bolling J, Lee R, McQuade J, Warner AB, Davies M, Weeraratna A, Villanueva J, Rebecca VW. Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the melanoma research community. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 2023 Sep;36(5):441-447. doi: 10.1111/pcmr.13087. Epub 2023 Apr 24. PMID: 37093838; PMCID: PMC10896642.

Rebecca VW, Xiao M, Kossenkov A, Godok T, Brown GS, Fingerman D, Alicea GM, Wei M, Ji H, Bravo J, Chen Y, Fane ME, Villanueva J, Nathanson K, Liu Q, Gopal YNV, Davies MA, Herlyn M.Dasatinib Resensitizes MAPK Inhibitor Efficacy in Standard-of-Care Relapsed Melanomas. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2023 Jan 21:2023.01.20.524923. doi: 10.1101/2023.01.20.524923.PMID: 36711814

Goyal Y, Busch GT, Pillai M, Li J, Boe RH, Grody EI, Chelvanambi M, Dardani IP, Emert B, Bodkin N, Braun J, Fingerman D, Kaur A, Jain N, Ravindran PT, Mellis IA, Kiani K, Alicea GM, Fane ME, Ahmed SS, Li H, Chen Y, Chai C, Kaster J, Witt RG, Lazcano R, Ingram DR, Johnson SB, Wani K, Dunagin MC, Lazar AJ, Weeraratna AT, Wargo JA, Herlyn M, Raj A. Diverse clonal fates emerge upon drug treatment of homogeneous cancer cells. Nature. 2023 Aug;620(7974):651-659. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06342-8. Epub 2023 Jul 19. PMID: 37468627; PMCID: PMC10628994.

Fane ME, Chhabra Y, Alicea GM, Maranto DA, Douglass SM, Webster MR, Rebecca VW, Marino GE, Almeida F, Ecker BL, Zabransky DJ, Hüser L, Beer T, Tang HY, Kossenkov A, Herlyn M, Speicher DW, Xu W, Xu X, Jaffee EM, Aguirre-Ghiso JA, Weeraratna AT. Stromal changes in the aged lung induce an emergence from melanoma dormancy. Nature. 2022 Jun;606(7913):396-405. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04774-2. Epub 2022 Jun 1.PMID: 35650435

Alicea GM, Rebecca VW. Un-Fair Skin: racial disparities in acral melanoma research. Nat Rev Cancer. 2022 Mar;22(3):127-128. doi: 10.1038/s41568-022-00443-8.PMID: 35075287.

Dardani I, Emert BL, Goyal Y, Jiang CL, Kaur A, Lee J, Rouhanifard SH, Alicea GM, Fane ME, Xiao M, Herlyn M, Weeraratna AT, Raj A.ClampFISH 2.0 enables rapid, scalable amplified RNA detection in situ. Nat Methods. 2022 Nov;19(11):1403-1410. doi: 10.1038/s41592-022-01653-6. Epub 2022 Oct 24.PMID: 36280724

Douglass SM, Fane ME, Sanseviero E, Ecker BL, Kugel CH 3rd, Behera R, Kumar V, Tcyganov EN, Yin X, Liu Q, Chhabra Y, Alicea GM, Kuruvilla R, Gabrilovich DI, Weeraratna AT. Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells Are a Major Source of Wnt5A in the Melanoma Microenvironment and Depend on Wnt5A for Full Suppressive Activity. Cancer Res. 2021 Feb 1;81(3):658-670. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-20-1238. Epub 2020 Dec 1.PMID: 33262126

Torre EA, Arai E, Bayatpour S, Jiang CL, Beck LE, Emert BL, Shaffer SM, Mellis IA, Fane ME, Alicea GM, Budinich KA, Weeraratna AT, Shi J, Raj A. Genetic screening for single-cell variability modulators driving therapy resistance. Nat Genet. 2021 Jan;53(1):76-85. doi: 10.1038/s41588-020-00749-z. Epub 2021 Jan 4.PMID: 33398196

Liu J, Rebecca VW, Kossenkov AV, Connelly T, Liu Q, Gutierrez A, Xiao M, Li L, Zhang G, Samarkina A, Zayasbazan D, Zhang J, Cheng C, Wei Z, Alicea GM, Fukunaga-Kalabis M, Krepler C, Aza-Blanc P, Yang CC, Delvadia B, Tong C, Huang Y, Delvadia M, Morias AS, Sproesser K, Brafford P, Wang JX, Beqiri M, Somasundaram R, Vultur A, Hristova DM, Wu LW, Lu Y, Mills GB, Xu W, Karakousis GC, Xu X, Schuchter LM, Mitchell TC, Amaravadi RK, Kwong LN, Frederick DT, Boland GM, Salvino JM, Speicher DW, Flaherty KT, Ronai ZA, Herlyn M.  Neural Crest-Like Stem Cell Transcriptome Analysis Identifies LPAR1 in Melanoma Progression and Therapy Resistance. Cancer Res. 2021 Oct 15;81(20):5230-5241. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-20-1496. Epub 2021 Aug 30.PMID: 34462276

Alicea GM, Rebecca VW. Emerging strategies to treat rare and intractable subtypes of melanoma. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 2021 Jan;34(1):44-58. doi: 10.1111/pcmr.12880. Epub 2020 Apr 24.PMID: 32274887

Alicea GM, Rebecca VW, Goldman AR, Fane ME, Douglass SM, Behera R, Webster MR, Kugel CH 3rd, Ecker BL, Caino MC, Kossenkov AV, Tang HY, Frederick DT, Flaherty KT, Xu X, Liu Q, Gabrilovich DI, Herlyn M, Blair IA, Schug ZT, Speicher DW, Weeraratna AT. Changes in Aged Fibroblast Lipid Metabolism Induce Age-Dependent Melanoma Cell Resistance to Targeted Therapy via the Fatty Acid Transporter FATP2. Cancer Discov. 2020 Sep;10(9):1282-1295. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-20-0329. Epub 2020 Jun 4.PMID: 32499221

Fane ME*, Ecker BL*, Kaur A*, Marino GE, Alicea GM, Douglass SM, Chhabra Y, Webster MR, Marshall A, Colling R, Espinosa O, Coupe N, Maroo N, Campo L, Middleton MR, Corrie P, Xu X, Karakousis GC, Weeraratna AT.sFRP2 Supersedes VEGF as an Age-related Driver of Angiogenesis in Melanoma, Affecting Response to Anti-VEGF Therapy in Older Patients.Clin Cancer Res. 2020 Nov 1;26(21):5709-5719. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-20-0446.PMID: 33097493

Webster MR, Fane ME, Alicea GM, Basu S, Kossenkov AV, Marino GE, Douglass SM, Kaur A, Ecker BL, Gnanapradeepan K, Ndoye A, Kugel C, Valiga A, Palmer J, Liu Q, Xu X, Morris J, Yin X, Wu H, Xu W, Zheng C, Karakousis GC, Amaravadi RK, Mitchell TC, Almeida FV, Xiao M, Rebecca VW, Wang YJ, Schuchter LM, Herlyn M, Murphy ME, Weeraratna AT. Paradoxical Role for Wild-Type p53 in Driving Therapy Resistance in Melanoma. Mol Cell. 2020 Feb 6;77(3):633-644.e5. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2019.11.009. Epub 2019 Dec 11.PMID: 31836388 

Zou Y, Watters A, Cheng N, Perry CE, Xu K, Alicea GM, Parris JLD, Baraban E, Ray P, Nayak A, Xu X, Herlyn M, Murphy ME, Weeraratna AT, Schug ZT, Chen Q. Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids from Astrocytes Activate PPARγ Signaling in Cancer Cells to Promote Brain Metastasis. Cancer Discov. 2019 Dec;9(12):1720-1735. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-19-0270. Epub 2019 Oct 2.PMID: 31578185
Ecker BL, Kaur A, Douglass SM, Webster MR, Almeida FV, Marino GE, Sinnamon AJ, Neuwirth MG, Alicea GM, Ndoye A, Fane M, Xu X, Sim MS, Deutsch GB, Faries MB, Karakousis GC, Weeraratna AT.Age-Related Changes in HAPLN1 Increase Lymphatic Permeability and Affect Routes of Melanoma Metastasis.Cancer Discov. 2019 Jan;9(1):82-95. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-18-0168. Epub 2018 Oct 2.PMID: 30279172
Kugel CH 3rd, Douglass SM, Webster MR, Kaur A, Liu Q, Yin X, Weiss SA, Darvishian F, Al-Rohil RN, Ndoye A, Behera R, Alicea GM, Ecker BL, Fane M, Allegrezza MJ, Svoronos N, Kumar V, Wang DY, Somasundaram R, Hu-Lieskovan S, Ozgun A, Herlyn M, Conejo-Garcia JR, Gabrilovich D, Stone EL, Nowicki TS, Sosman J, Rai R, Carlino MS, Long GV, Marais R, Ribas A, Eroglu Z, Davies MA, Schilling B, Schadendorf D, Xu W, Amaravadi RK, Menzies AM, McQuade JL, Johnson DB, Osman I, Weeraratna AT. Age Correlates with Response to Anti-PD1, Reflecting Age-Related Differences in Intratumoral Effector and Regulatory T-Cell Populations.Clin Cancer Res. 2018 Nov 1;24(21):5347-5356. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-18-1116. Epub 2018 Jun 13.PMID: 29898988
Behera R, Kaur A, Webster MR, Kim S, Ndoye A, Kugel CH 3rd, Alicea GM, Wang J, Ghosh K, Cheng P, Lisanti S, Marchbank K, Dang V, Levesque M, Dummer R, Xu X, Herlyn M, Aplin AE, Roesch A, Caino C, Altieri DC, Weeraratna AT.Inhibition of Age-Related Therapy Resistance in Melanoma by Rosiglitazone-Mediated Induction of Klotho.Clin Cancer Res. 2017 Jun 15;23(12):3181-3190. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-17-0201. Epub 2017 Feb 23.PMID: 28232477

Rebecca VW, Nicastri MC, McLaughlin N, Fennelly C, McAfee Q, Ronghe A, Nofal M, Lim CY, Witze E, Chude CI, Zhang G, Alicea GM, Piao S, Murugan S, Ojha R, Levi SM, Wei Z, Barber-Rotenberg JS, Murphy ME, Mills GB, Lu Y, Rabinowitz J, Marmorstein R, Liu Q, Liu S, Xu X, Herlyn M, Zoncu R, Brady DC, Speicher DW, Winkler JD, Amaravadi RK.A Unified Approach to Targeting the Lysosome’s Degradative and Growth Signaling Roles. Cancer Discov. 2017 Nov;7(11):1266-1283. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-17-0741. Epub 2017 Sep 12.PMID: 28899863

Aird KM, Iwasaki O, Kossenkov AV, Tanizawa H, Fatkhutdinov N, Bitler BG, Le L, Alicea G, Yang TL, Johnson FB, Noma KI, Zhang R.J. HMGB2 orchestrates the chromatin landscape of senescence-associated secretory phenotype gene loci. Cell Biol. 2016 Nov 7;215(3):325-334. doi: 10.1083/jcb.201608026. Epub 2016 Oct 31.PMID: 27799366

Rebecca VW, Alicea GM, Paraiso KH, Lawrence H, Gibney GT, Smalley KS. Vertical inhibition of the MAPK pathway enhances therapeutic responses in NRAS-mutant melanoma. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 2014 Nov;27(6):1154-8. doi: 10.1111/pcmr.12303. Epub 2014 Sep 1.PMID: 25130256