Fuentes Laboratory

Proteins are often credited as the macromolecules responsible for performing critical cellular functions, but lipids have recently garnered more attention as our understanding of their role in cell function and human health becomes more apparent. Lipids serve important functions as signaling molecules and energy substrates and have an often-underappreciated role as membrane structural components. Importantly, membrane spatial dynamics (i.e., biochemical and biophysical characteristics) influence cellular signaling and are altered by disease, such as cancer, or extrinsic factors including diet and environmental exposures.

The Fuentes Lab combines dietary intervention strategies, lipid biochemistry, advanced fluorescent microscopy, membrane biophysics and lipidomics techniques to characterize how nanoscale changes to lipids and proteins in the tumor microenvironment influence immunosuppression and other disease processes. Our goal is to unravel the cellular and molecular basis of therapeutic resistance mechanisms in cancer to lay the groundwork for development of novel preventive and/or therapeutic strategies that target membrane organization.