Dario Carlo Altieri, M.D., is a researcher who works as director of The Wistar Institute Cancer Center in Philadelphia. In 2015, he became the CEO of The Wistar Institute.
His research has focused on Inhibitors of Apoptosis (IAP), a family of genes essential for proliferation and survival of cells. His work has identified survivin, one of these IAP genes, is over-produced in almost every human cancer, and his team is currently studying the biology of survivin and how it could be used to develop treatments for cancer.
Altieri has also been involved in the development of gamitrinib, a Hsp90 inhibitor that was shown to disable the activity of mitochondria in cancerous cells.
In 2013, Altieri and his team received a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Defense to prepare the drug for human trials. Prior to joining Wistar, Altieri was the founding chair of the Department of Cancer Biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He also co-founded the Cancer Biology Training Consortium and the Pancreatic Cancer alliance in 2005.
Chae, Y. C., Angelin, A., Lisanti, S., Kossenkow, A. A., Speicher, K. D., Wang, H., Powers, J. F., Tischler, A. S., Pacak, K., Fliedner, S., Michalek, R. D., Karoly, E. D., Wallace, D. C., Languino, L. R., Speicher, D. W. and Altieri, D. C. (2013) Landscape of the mitochondrial Hsp90 metabolome in tumors. Nature Commun. 4:2139.
Caino, M. C., Chae, Y. C., Vaira, V., Ferrero, S., Nosotti, M., Martin, N. M., Weeraratna, A., O’Connell, M., Jernigan, D., Fatatis, A., Languino, L. R., Bosari, S., and Altieri, D. C. (2013) Metabolic stress regulates cytoskeletal dynamics and metastasis of cancer cells. J. Clin. Invest. 123:2907-2920.
Chae, Y. C., Caino, M. C., Lisanti, S., Ghosh, J. C., Dohi, T., Danial, N. N., Villanueva, J., Ferrero, S., Vaira, V., Santambrogio, L., Bosari, S., Languino, L. R., Herlyn, M., and Altieri, D. C. (2012) Control of tumor bioenergetics and survival stress signaling by mitochondrial Hsp90s. Cancer Cell 22:331-344.
Siegelin, M. D., Dohi, T., Raskett, C. M., Orlowsky, G. M., Powers, C. M., Gilbert, C. A., Ross, A. H., Plescia, J., and Altieri, D. C. (2011) Exploiting the mitochondrial unfolded protein response for cancer therapy in mice and human cells. J. Clin. Invest. 121:1349-1360.
Mehrotra, S., Languino, L. R., Raskett, C. M., Mercurio, A. M., Dohi, T., andAltieri, D. C. (2010) IAP regulation of metastasis. Cancer Cell. 17:53-64.
