Dr. Douglas Spitz and his lab members participate in the Free Radical and Radiation Biology Graduate Program in Radiation Oncology as well as the Free Radical Metabolism and Imaging Program in the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa. A central theme of these interdisciplinary programs are studies focused on the role of free radicals and redox stress in cancer biology from both the basic science as well as a pre-clinical and clinical translational perspectives.

Ongoing projects include the study of mitochondrial defects and metabolic oxidative stress in cancer biology and therapy, molecular imaging of metabolism and prediction of responses to cancer therapy, the study of molecular mechanisms of resistance to oxidative stress as they relate to cancer cell resistance to therapy, redox regulation of signal transduction and gene expression relating to cell growth and differentiation, as well as using manipulations of redox biology to selectively sensitize human tumor cells to conventional anticancer agents that induce oxidative stress while sparing normal tissue injury.

The long-term goal of these laboratory efforts are to use a basic science understanding of mechanisms associated with free radical biology to elucidate novel methods for manipulating clinically significant outcomes in areas of medicine relevant to cancer biology and degenerative diseases associated with aging.