Gordon Laboratory

Principal Investigator

Nancy Gordon, M.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics

Nancy Gordon, M.D., is a native of Caracas, Venezuela. She moved to the United States over 20 years ago, completed Pediatric Residency at Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2001; a Pediatric Hematology Oncology fellowship at MD Anderson in 2004; and a non-neural solid tumor advanced fellowship in 2005. Dr. Gordon remained at MD Anderson, completing a post-doctoral fellowship before becoming an instructor in 2009. A few months later, she was promoted to Assistant Professor and is now an Associate Professor in the department of Pediatrics Research. Through the years, Dr. Gordon developed expertise in the Osteosarcoma field and built an independent lab within the Kleinerman Laboratory.

Our research

Research in the Gordon lab is geared towards understanding the biology of Osteosarcoma (OS), the most common primary malignant bone tumor in children, mechanisms of metastatic disease and chemotherapy resistance that could help identify novel targets with potential to improve overall therapy response. We study aerosol delivery of chemotherapy as a tool to directly target the lungs, the main organ where OS metastasizes, and autophagy, a cell survival mechanism triggered by tumor cells under stressful conditions such as chemotherapy and the epigenetic alterations that influence autophagy outcome (survival vs death). The Gordon Laboratory also studies immunotherapy and alternatives to enhance adoptive transfer of NK cell therapy efficacy against OS.

Dr. Gordon also received a funded grant (CPRIT- Co-I) to develop a comprehensive data resource core of pediatric tumors with emphasis in solid tumors. This core is designed to collect longitudinal patient samples and is not limited to blood or tissue but any bodily fluids with clinical annotation, epigenetic and immune profiling.  Information is currently stored in an iCloud-based portal and will eventually be made accessible to the public through a collaboration with UT Southwestern in Dallas.

The main goal of the Gordon Laboratory investigations is to translate findings to the clinic. The lab currently has two ongoing Phase I/II studies as a result of pre-clinical work.