Dr. R. Taylor Ripley Receives Faculty Research Award

R. Taylor Ripley MD, associate professor of Surgery and director of the Mesothelioma Treatment Center at Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, has been awarded $25,000 in funding for his proposal “BH3 Profiling of Lung and Esophageal Cancers Enables Precision-Based Targeting of the Mitochondrial Apoptotic Pathways,” through the Faculty Research Award Program in the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. The funding period for the award began July 1, 2019, and will end June 30, 2020. Dr. Ripley’s project was chosen because it received an outstanding score from a review panel of expert investigators from outside of the Department.

The study is based on how cells that should die from environmental or therapeutic insults, survival and continue to grow. Resistance to cancer cell apoptosis is a hallmark of cancer that impedes effective therapy. Despite this resistance, tumor cells paradoxically may be more susceptible to cell death if the mechanisms of resistance are identified and directly targeted. Dynamic BH3 profiling (DBP) provides a rapid way to determine which components of the intrinsic pathway are responsible for these resistance mechanisms. After determining which anti-apoptotic proteins are resisting cellular death, tumor cell proteins can be targeted with one of several BH3 mimetics (drugs that directly target the individual proteins in this pathway). Therefore, DBP may provide translatable, precision-based, clinical information within 48-72 hours of an esophageal or lung tumor biopsy.

Dr. Ripley is a nationally recognized, board-certified thoracic surgeon and expert in thoracic surgical oncology specializing in the treatment of mesothelioma. In addition to mesothelioma, Dr. Ripley practices all facets of general thoracic surgery and has lectured nationally and published extensively on his work in the field of thoracic oncology and tumor metabolism.