Faculty

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Irfan A Asangani, Ph.D.

Adjunct Associate Professor of Cancer Biology

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Department: Cancer Biology

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1f Graduate Group Affiliations 8

Pharmacology
Cell and Molecular Biology

46 Contact information
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421 Curie Blvd
36 611 BRB II/III
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6160

2e Office: 215-746-8780
3e Lab: 215-746-8781
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Email:
asangani@upenn.edu

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18 Publications
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26 Search PubMed for articles c

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13 Education:
21 9 B.S. 28 (Biochemistry (First Class) ) c
32 Madras University (India), 1999.
21 9 M.S. 28 (Biochemistry (First Class) ) c
32 Madras University (India), 2001.
21 a Ph.D. 2d (Cancer Biology (Summa cum laude)) c
53 Klinikum Mannheim / DKFZ / Heidelberg University (Germany), 2009.
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Links
66 Search PubMed for articles
51 Lab website
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5 3 3 92 Permanent link
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b6 > Perelman School of Medicine > Faculty > Details a

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Description of Research Expertise

23 Research Interest:
54 Our lab investigates the molecular epigenetic events associated with cancer
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12 Key words:
8e Cancer epigenetics, Chromatin regulation, Histone methyltransferase, transcription, non-coding RNA, Targeted therapy, Drug resistance
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15 Lab Members:
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89 Rotation Projects: Rotation projects are available in each of the main areas of the lab. Please contact Dr. Asangani for details.
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21 Description of Research:
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29c Cancer cells display an altered landscape of chromatin leading to broad changes in the gene expression. In addition, genes involved in chromatin remodeling and epigenetic regulation are frequently and specifically mutated in a wide variety of cancers including prostate cancer. While known to serve important roles in the control of gene expression and development, these largely unexpected mutation findings have illuminated newly recognized mechanisms central to the genesis of cancer. Gaining insight into the mechanism of chromatin regulation in cancer will offer the potential to reveal novel approaches and targets for effective therapeutic intervention.
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257 Our laboratory employs a multidisciplinary approach to study these molecular epigenetic events associated with cancer towards the overarching goal of translating this knowledge into clinical tools by developing novel diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic strategies. Additionally, we investigate the mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapies and develop novel combinatorial approaches that act on compensatory/new pathways in resistant tumors. Our basic strategy is to develop and deploy rational polytherapy upfront that suppresses the survival and emergence of resistant tumor cells.
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386 Current Research: Prostate cancer is the most common non-cutaneous malignancy and second leading cause of cancer-related mortality in men of the Western world. While effective surgical, radiation, and androgen ablation therapy exists for clinically localized prostate cancer, progression to metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) remains essentially incurable. Despite the success of recently approved therapies targeting AR (androgen receptor) signaling, durable responses are limited due to acquired resistance. Therefore, the identification and therapeutic targeting of co-activators or mediators of AR transcriptional signaling should be considered as alternate strategies to treat CRPC. Our research is focused on chromatin modifying enzymes and chromatin-associated epigenetic regulator proteins in the context of prostate cancer initiation and progression to metastasis.
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40 Current areas of interest within the laboratory include:
69 1. Delineating the role of chromatin regulators, and its importance in AR mediated transcription
62 2. Understanding the role of non-coding RNA in regulating higher order chromatin structure
52 3. Investigate the molecular mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapies
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Selected Publications

11e Sussman JH, Cure HW, Li, J, Ito K, Yuan, S, Bhanu N, Asangani IA, Garcia BA, Stanger BZ, Katsuda T: In vivo CRISPR screening reveals epigenetic regulators of hepatobiliary plasticity. Genes & Development May 2025.

1d9 Demetriadou C, Noji M, Good AL, Mitchell-Velasquez E, Venkatesh S, Kantner DS, Pennise J, Costa-Pinheiro P, Pinheiro LV, Harada T, Nguyen PTT, Chatoff A, Megill E, Crispim CVDS, Marcinkiewicz MM, Meier JL, Arany Z, Asangani I, Furth EE, Stanger BZ, Snyder NW, Wellen KE.: A nuclear branched-chain amino acid catabolism pathway controls histone propionylation in pancreatic cancer. bioRxiv April 2025.

14d Blanchard T, Faridi P, Xu C, Bear AS, Rasool RU, Huang G, Lim TCC, Ayala R, Gabunia K, Ji M, Posey AD Jr, Scholler J, Asangani IA, Purcell AW, Linette GP, June CH, Carreno BM.: LOXHD1 is an oncofusion-regulated antigen of ewing sarcoma. Sci Reports April 2025.

18f Gladstein AC, Poltorack CD, Solomon AMC, Venkatesh S, Adler KM, Robertson MR, Stransky S, Irizarry-Negron VM, Ruiz DA, Freeburg NF, Sidoli S, Asangani IA, Shaffer SM, Feldser DM.: The H3 K36M oncohistone inhibits NSD2 to activate a SETD2-dependent antiviral-like immune response in KRAS-driven lung cancer. bioRxiv March 2025.

146 Katsuda T, Sussman JH, Ito K, Katznelson A, Yuan S, Takenaka N, Li J, Merrell AJ, Cure H, Li Q, Rasool RU, Asangani IA, Zaret KS, Stanger BZ.: Cellular reprogramming in vivo initiated by SOX4 pioneer factor activity. Nature Communications February 2024

1d1 Schwab A, Siddiqui MA, Ramesh V, Gollavilli PN, Turtos MA, Møller SS, Pinna L, Havelund JF, Rømer AMA, Ersan PG, Parma B, Marschall S, Dettmer K, Alhusayan M, Bertoglio P, Querzoli G, Mielenz D, Sahin O, Færgeman NJ, Asangani IA, Ceppi P: Polyol pathway-generated fructose is indispensable for growth and survival of non-small cell lung cancer. Cell Death & Differentiation December 2024.

1ed Parolia A, Eyunni S, Verma BK, Young E, Liu L, George J, Aras S, Das CK, Mannan R, Rasool RU, Luo J, Carson SE, Mitchell-Velasquez E, Liu Y, Xiao L, Gajjala PR, Jaber M, Wang X, He T, Qiao Y, Pang M, Zhang Y, Alhusayan M, Cao X, Tavana O, Hou C, Wang Z, Ding K, Chinnaiyan AM, Asangani IA.: NSD2 is a requisite subunit of the AR/FOXA1 neo-enhanceosome in promoting prostate tumorigenesis. Nature Genetics September 2024.

23b Reyaz ur Rasool, Caitlin M. O’Connor, Chandan Kanta Das, Mohammed Alhusayan, Brijesh Kumar Verma, Sehbanul Islam, Ingrid E. Frohner, Qu Deng, Erick Mitchell-Velasquez, Jaya Sangodkar, Aqila Ahmed, Sarah Linauer, Ingrid Mudrak, Jessica Rainey, Kaitlin P. Zawacki, Tahra K. Suhan, Catherine G. Callahan, Ryan Rebernick, Ramakrishnan Natesan, Javed Siddiqui, Guido Sauter, Dafydd Thomas, Shaomeng Wang, Derek J. Taylor, Ronald Simon, Marcin Cieslik, Arul M. Chinnaiyan, Luca Busino, Egon Ogris, Goutham Narla, Irfan A. Asangani. c1 : Loss of LCMT1 and biased protein phosphatase 2A heterotrimerization drive prostate cancer progression and therapy resistance. Nature Communications August 2023.

18c Walter DM, Gladstein AC, Doerig KR, Natesan R, Baskaran SG, Gudiel AA, Adler KM, Acosta JO, Wallace DC, Asangani IA, Feldser DM: Setd2 inactivation sensitizes lung adenocarcinoma to inhibitors of oxidative respiration and mTORC1 signaling. Communications Biology Page: 6(1):255. doi: 10.1038/s42003-023-04618-3. March 2023.

108 Deng Q, Natesan R, Cidre-Aranaz F, Arif S, Liu Y, Rasool RU, Wang P, Mitchell-Velasquez E, Das CK, Vinca E, Cramer Z, Grohar PJ, Chou M, Kumar-Sinha C, Weber K, Eisinger-Mathason TSK, Grillet N, Grünewald T, Asangani IA d6 : Oncofusion-driven de novo enhancer assembly promotes malignancy in Ewing sarcoma via aberrant expression of the stereociliary protein LOXHD1. Cell Reports 39(11): 110971, June 2022.

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