Ira Pastan

My interest is in developing new therapies for cancer by making fusion proteins composed of the Fv portion of antibodies directed at antigens on cancer cells fused to a genetically modified form of a powerful bacterial toxin, Pseudomonas exotoxin A. These chimeric proteins which are termed recombinant immunotoxins are being tested in humans with various forms of cancer. I also study the human multidrug resistance gene, MDR1, and how this resistance gene can be used in gene therapy.