Anton Wellstein's Biography

Anton Wellstein, Professor, Georgetown University Medical Center

Dr. Wellstein is a senior investigator at the Lombardi Cancer Center who trained as an MD/PhD and then joined NIH to study growth factor signaling in breast cancer in the Medicine Branch of the NCI in Marc E Lippman’s lab. Thereafter he was recruited to the faculty of Georgetown University in the Departments of Pharmacology and Oncology, where he is a Tenured Professor. He discovered that the receptor for pleiotrophin was ALK and also identified and defined the role of secreted binding proteins for FGF and their function in cancer and development. During the past decade Dr. Wellstein’s work focused on tumor / stromal interaction with a particular emphasis on the function and regulation of the activity of FGFs and the pleiotrophin/ALK signaling pathways. His major interest is in mechanisms of cancer progression to invasive and metastatic disease. His laboratory is focused on cellular, molecular and biochemical signal transduction mechanisms utilized by cancer cells in malignant progression in vitro as well as in xenograft tumors, transgenic and in knockout animal models. His laboratory also studies biomarkers of cancer progression and response to treatment using 'liquid biopsies'. He has published >170 papers.