Dr. David Nathanson is an Associate Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He received his B.S. from Willamette University and his Ph.D. from UCLA under Dr. Paul Mischel in 2011. His graduate studies with Dr. Mischel focused on interrogating the mechanisms in which glioblastomas acquire resistance to targeted therapy. From his work, he discovered a novel “hide and seek” drug resistance mechanism, whereby glioblastoma cells evade targeted drugs by the dynamic elimination of extrachromosomal DNA (Nathanson et. al, Science, 2014). This finding has subsequently stimulated deeper investigations into the prevalence, structure, and regulation of extrachromosomal DNA in cancer. Dr. Nathanson conducted his post-doctoral work with Drs. Caius Radu and Johannes Czernin, which led to the development of a new therapy to target DNA metabolism in cancer (Nathanson et. al, JEM, 2014) and the founding of Trethera Corporation, a clinical stage biotechnology company. Dr. Nathanson’s current laboratory focuses on identifying the key molecular and functional processes driving glioblastoma with the goal of developing new therapeutic strategies to treat this deadly disease.
Dr. Nathanson is a member of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC), the Ahmanson Translational Imaging Division (ATID), and the Broad Stem Cell Institute at UCLA. He was a Scholar in Oncologic Molecular Imaging (SOMI) Fellow, and recipient of the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award by the NIH, the STOP Cancer Award, the Sanofi Innovation Award, and the Johnny Mercer Foundation Award for brain tumor research.