Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland, United States
John Laterra. MD, PhD is Professor of Neurology, Oncology and Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Director of the Department of Neurology Division of Neuro-Oncology, and co-Leader of the Brain Cancer Program at The Johns Hopkins Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Laterra's career as a physician-scientist has focused on the diagnosis and treatment of patients with primary brain tumors and laboratory research focused on understanding mechanisms of brain tumor malignancy, and identifying new therapeutic targets and strategies for treating malignant gliomas. Dr. Laterra's laboratory made foundational discoveries supporting clinical trials using c-Met inhibitors in GBM and subsequently showed that the c-Met receptor tyrosine kinase functions as a driver of tumor-propagating glioma stem cells. Dr. Laterra's current laboratory-based research focuses on evaluating the efficacy of novel therapeutics in pre-clinical tumor models with emphasis on epigenetic mechanisms underlying the formation of glioma-propagating stem-like cells and the development of single and combinatorial strategies to inhibit such mechanisms and their oncogenic consequences.
