James M Olson, MD, PhD

Professional History

Board Certified:

Pediatric Hematology-Oncology

Medical/Professional School:

University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor

Residency:

University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Pediatrics

Fellowship:

University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Pediatric Hematology-Oncology

Research Focus Area:

Cancer

Description of Research:

I am principal investigator on six projects that focus on developing effective new therapies for pediatric brain tumors, methods that allow surgeons to better visualize the border of brain cancer and normal brain, the molecular mechanisms of cerebellar development and genetic-based endpoints for neuro-degenerative diseases.

A study led by my team and I showed that tumor paint is 500 times better than a standard MRI at helping surgeons distinguish between cancer cells and normal tissue. Our team developed the paint, which is currently being studied in mice models, from a scorpion-derived peptide called chlorotoxin.

Key Publications:

Kaltenbach LS, Romero E, Becklin RR, Chettier R, Bell R, Phansalkar A, Strand A, Torcassi C, Savage J, Hurlburt A, Cha GH, Ukani L, Chepanoske CL, Zhen Y, Sahasrabudhe S, Olson JM, Kurschner C, Ellerby LM, Peltier JM, Botas J, Hughes RE. Huntingtin interacting proteins are genetic modifiers of neurodegeneration. PLoS Genet. May 2007;3(5):e82.

Kuhn A, Goldstein DR, Hodges A, Strand AD, Sengstag T, Kooperberg C, Becanovic K, Pouladi MA, Sathasivam K, Cha JH, Hannan AJ, Hayden MR, Leavitt BR, Dunnett SB, Ferrante RJ, Albin R, Shelbourne P, Delorenzi M, Augood SJ, Faull RL, Olson JM, Bates GP, Jones L, Luthi-Carter R. Mutant huntingtin's effects on striatal gene expression in mice recapitulate changes observed in human Huntington's disease brain and do not differ with mutant huntingtin length or wild-type huntingtin dosage. Hum Mol Genet. Aug 2007;16(15):1845?1861.

Prakash A, Piening B, Whiteaker J, Zhang H, Shaffer SA, Martin D, Hohmann L, Cooke K, Olson JM, Hansen S, Flory MR, Lee H, Watts J, Goodlett DR, Aebersold R, Paulovich A, Schwikowski B. Assessing bias in experiment design for large-scale mass spectrometry-based quantitative proteomics. Mol Cell Proteomics. Oct 2007;6(10):1741?1748.

Strand AD, Aragaki AK, Baquet ZC, Hodges A, Cunningham P, Holmans P, Jones KR, Jones L, Kooperberg C, Olson JM. Conservation of regional gene expression in mouse and human brain. PLoS Genet. Apr 2007;3(4):e59.

Strand AD, Baquet ZC, Aragaki AK, Holmans P, Yang L, Cleren C, Beal MF, Jones L, Kooperberg C, Olson JM, Jones KR. Expression profiling of Huntington's disease models suggests that brain-derived neurotrophic factor depletion plays a major role in striatal degeneration. J Neurosci. Oct 2007;27(43):11758?11768.

Veiseh M, Gabikian P, Bahrami SB, Veiseh O, Zhang M, Hackman RC, Ravanpay AC, Stroud MR, Kusuma Y, Hansen SJ, Kwok D, Mu?oz NM, Sze RW, Grady WM, Greenberg NM, Ellenbogen RG, Olson JM. Tumor paint: a chlorotoxin:Cy5.5 bioconjugate for intraoperative visualization of cancer foci. Cancer Res. Jul 2007;67(14):6882?6888.