Carlos Telleria
BSc, PhD
Dr. Carlos Telleria received his doctoral training from the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET), and acquired postdoctoral expertise at the Department of Physiology, College of Medicine of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Before joining the Department of Pathology at McGill University, Dr. Telleria navigated the academic ranks at the Division of Biomedical Sciences of the Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota. During his years as an academic researcher, Dr. Telleria mentored several undergraduate and graduate students and received various awards for excellence in research and teaching. At McGill, in addition to be Professor in the Department of Pathology, Dr. Telleria became an associate member of the Bronfman Department of Oncology and a member of the Cancer Research Program of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Center (RI-MUHC). Dr. Telleria is currently a member of the editorial board of peer reviewed scientific journals including Communications Biology, Discovery Oncology, Cancer Cell International, Journal of Ovarian Research, Oncology Reports, PLOS One, and Cancers.
The investigations in Dr. Telleria’s laboratory focus on studying ovarian cancer, the most lethal gynecological malignancy. Diagnosis for this disease is often reached when it is highly advanced. Even though 70% of patients initially respond to debulking surgery and platinum-based therapy with remission, the disease usually recurs with a resistant phenotype known as platinum-resistant ovarian cancer or PROC, which has a median survival of less than 12 months. The Telleria’s laboratory is using a strategy against PROC known as ‘drug repurposing’, ‘repositioning’, ‘reprofiling’, or ‘redirecting’, which seeks new medical treatments from existing licensed medications rather than from the development of new molecules (de novo drug development). In contrast to de novo drugs, licensed medications offer advantages such as availability of pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, knowledge of safety and toxicity, widespread availability, low cost, and the understanding of mechanisms of action. Currently, the laboratory is studying three compounds clinically approved for non-cancer purposes (an approach termed ‘hard-repositioning’) to combat PROC, including an abortion drug (mifepristone), an HIV protease inhibitor (nelfinavir), and an anti-arthritis complex (auranofin). Dr. Telleria’s laboratory demonstrated that mifepristone inhibits the growth of ovarian cancer cells by blocking cell cycle progression and prevents regrowth of ‘escape’ cancer cells after platinum therapy . They also revealed that the anti-HIV nelfinavir kills ovarian cancer cells by modulating protein synthesis, causing DNA damage, and lysosome impairment, and resensitize PROC cells to cisplatin. In the case of the anti-rheumatic drug auranofin, they established its cytotoxicity against ovarian cancer cells inducing oxidative stress-mediated DNA damage and further found that the drug resensitizes PROC cells to cisplatin. Dr. Telleria’s laboratory is also investigating treatments for rare, yet extremely aggressive sub-types of ovarian cancers, using oncology drugs approved for cancers not of ovarian nature (an approach termed ‘soft-repositioning’). For this, they are applying a ‘two-punch’ tactic consisting of first triggering senescence of the cancer cells with oncology drugs, followed by the killing of such senescent cells with agents called ‘senolytics.’ Either ‘hard’- or ‘soft’-drug repositioning are promising approaches to prolong the overall survival of ovarian cancer patients, particularly those with PROC.