The laboratory of Louise Showe aims to develop a better understanding of diseases and disorders that result from changes in the normal activity of multiple genes that regulate a normal immune response. Among these is a type of immune cell cancer known as cutaneous T-cell lymphoma and the auto-immune disease multiple sclerosis. Additional studies are focused on understanding how a lung tumor can change gene expression in normal immune cells. Her ultimate aim is to improve ways to diagnose for these diseases, identify promising new targets for therapeutic intervention and to understand genetic criteria that determine response and non-response to therapy.

Showe first joined The Wistar Institute in 1983 as an assistant professor. She received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Wilkes College (PA) and her master’s in developmental biology from Temple University. After gaining her Ph.D. in biology from the University of Pennsylvania, she moved to Europe to do her post-doctoral studies at the Biozentrum der Universitat, Basel, Switzerland. She is presently the Scientific Director of the Wistar Bioinformatics and Genomic Core facilities and she is also the associate director for genomics of the newly established Center for Systems and Computational Biology at The Wistar Institute. Showe was awarded one of the first ten National Cancer Institute Director’s Challenge grants to create new molecular criteria for the classification of cancers.

Showe’s current research interests have focused on using the power of functional genomics to better understand disease processes with an emphasis on the immune system and cancer. In addition, her laboratory has actively contributed to the development of bioinformatics at The Wistar Institute, focusing on the analysis of microarray data, simultaneously measures and compares the expression of thousands of genes in normal and diseased tissues as well as the the development of methods to identify small regulatory RNAs (microRNAs) and the coding genes they regulate.

Among her most recent work is the identification of biomarkers in the blood that indicate the presence of early-stage lung tumors in high risk populations of smokers and ex-smokers, and the changes in the immune system that occur when those lung tumors are removed. They have also used blood gene expression patterns to identify lung cancer patients likely to relapse after lung surgery. Additional studies have also investigated gene expression patterns in malignant and normal immune cells of CTCL patients in response to different treatments both in vivo and in vitro, including studies of patients with HIV. Her laboratory has also investigated gene expression patterns associated with infection with Chlamydia pneumoniae, which has been implicated in atherosclerosis and with the University of Fairbanks they are studying how hibernating black bears modify gene expression in various tissues during hibernation.

1 - Fedorov VB, Goropashnaya AV, Toien O, Stewart NC, Chang C, Wang H, Yan J, Showe LC, Showe MK, Barnes BM., Modulation of gene expression in heart and liver of hibernating black bears (Ursus Americanus)., BMC Genomics. 2011 Mar 31;12:171, 21453527

2 - Negorev DG, Vladimirova OV, Kossenkov AV, Nikonova EV, Demarest RM, Capobianco AJ, Showe MK, Rauscher FJ, Showe LC, Maul GG., Sp 100 as a potent tumor suppressor: accelerated senescence and rapid malignant transformation of human fibroblasts through modulation of an embryonic stem cell program., Cancer Research. 2010 Dec 1;70(23):9991-10001., 21118961

3 - Lu F, Wikramasinghe P, Norseen J, Tsai K, Wang P, Showe L, Davuluri RV, Lieberman PM., Genome-wide analysis of host-chromosome binding sites for Epstein-Barr virus Nuclear Antigen 1 (EBNA1)., Virology J. 2010 Oct 7;7(1):262., 20929547

4 - Sun H, Wu J, Wickramasinghe P, Pal S, gupta R, Bhattacharyya A, Agosto-Perez FJ, Showe LC, Huang TH, Davuluri RV., Genome-wide mapping of RNA Pol-11 promoter usage in mouse tissues by ChIP-seq., Nucleic Acids Research. 2010 Sep 14., 20843783

5 - Iizasa H, Wulff BE, Alla NR, Maragkakis M, Megraw M, Hatzigeorgiou A, Iwakiri D, Takada K, Wiedmer A, Showe L, Lieberman P, Nishikura K., Editing of Epstein-Barr-virus-encoded BART6 microRNAs controls their dicer targeting and consequently affects viral latency., Journal of Biological Chemistry. 2010 Oct 22;285(43):33358-70., 20716523

6 - Samimi S, Benoit B, Evans K, Wherry EJ, Showe L, Wysocka M, Rook AH., Increased Programmed Death-1 expression on CD4+ T Cells in Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma: Implications for immune suppression., Archives of Dermatology. 2010 Aug 16., 20713771

7 - Raymond AD, Gekonge B, Giri MS, Hancock A, Papasavvas E, et al., Showe L, Montaner LJ., Increased Metallothionein gene expression, zinc, and zinc-dependent resistance to apoptosis in circulating monocytes during HIV viremia., Journal of Leukocyte Biology. 2010 Sep;88(3):589-96., 20551211

8 - Showe MK, Vachani A, Kossenkov AV, Yousef M, Nichols C, et al., Speicher D, Rom WN, Albelda S, Showe LC., Gene expression profiles in peripheral blood mononuclear cells can distinguish patients with non-small cell lung cancer from patients with nonmalignant lung disease., Cancer Research. 2009 Dec 15;69(24):9202-10., 19951989

9 - Braitch M, Kawabe K, Nyirenda M, Gilles LJ, Robins RA, Gran B, Murphy S, Showe L, Constantinescu CS., Expression of activity-dependent neuroprotective protein in the immune system: possible functions and relevance to multiple sclerosis., Neuroimmunomodulation. 2010;17(2):120-5., 19923857

10 - Yousef M, Ketany M, Manevitz L, Showe LC, Showe MK., Classification and biomarker identification using gene network modules and support vector machines., BMC Bioinformatics. 2009 Oct 15;10:337. , 19832995