Robin J. Leach, Ph.D., Professor
University of Utah
1984

(210) 567-6947
LEACH@UTHSCSA.EDU

Dr. Leach is course director for the Graduate Colloquium, as well as an instructor in the Genetics course. She is a past recipient of the Dean's Award for Exceptional Graduate Teaching and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching.

She is also the Co-Director of the Institutional Genomics Core. Using a molecular genetic approach, we are studying a number of common diseases including prostate and testicular cancer, diabetes, schizophrenia and Paget’s disease of the bone.

For our studies of prostate cancer, we are looking at the role of genetic variation in prostate cancer risk. We are currently conducting a series of molecular epidemiological studies in an attempt to identify variants in prostate-related genes that increase an individual's risk for prostate cancer. In collaboration with Dr. Ian Thompson, we are studying three populations (Hispanic Caucasians, non-Hispanic Caucasians and African Americans) gathered from the San Antonio area. We have already identified variations in the androgen receptor, estrogen receptor, and vitamin D receptor that increase an individual's risk of prostate cancer in at least one of these populations. This research if funded by the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society.

In collaboration with Dr. Teresa Johnson-Pais, we are using comparative "genomic" hybridization to identify regions of loss and gain in prostate cancer speciments. We are currently characterizing these regions for putative tumor suppressor genes and/or oncogenes. Once genes are identified from these regions of loss and gain, we use a cell biology approach to manipulate the expression of these genes in established cell lines. From these experiments, we are currently exploring the role of a number of genes in prostate cancer progression. Interestingly, some of the genes that we have identified as amplified in prostate cancer appear to be amplified in testis cancer.

Paraffin embedded prostate specimen hybridized with a bacterial artificial chromosome that appeared to be deleted by comparative genomic hybridization. Closest picture is the normal adjacent prostate cells and the picture on the right is the prostate tumor. The tumor has a homozygous deletion of a region of chromosome 18.

In collaboration with Drs. Michael Stern and Donna Lehman, we are looking at the role of genetic variation in the predisposition for diabetes in a large Hispanic co-hort. We have recently identified variants in a number of genes that appear to play a role in diabetes susceptibility. A similar approach for identifying schizophrenia genes in a Costa Rican population is being conducted in collaboration with Drs. Michael Escamilla and Consuelo Walss-Bass  

PUBLICATIONS:
Leach RJ, Singer FR, Ench Y, Wisdom JH, Pina DS, Johnson-Pais TL (2006)
Clinical and cellular phenotypes associated with sequestosome 1 (SQSTM1) mutations. J Bone Miner Res, in press.

Despande AM, Akunowicz JD, Reveles XT, Patel BB, Gorlick RG, Naylor SL, Leach RJ, Hansen MF (2006)
PHC3, a component of the hPRC-H complex, associated with E2F6 during G0 and is lost in osteosarcoma tumors. Oncogene, in press.

Vijayakumar S, Hall DC, Reveles XT, Troyer DA, Thompson IM, Garcia D, Xiang R, Leach RJ, Johnson-Pais TL, Naylor SL. (2006) Detection of recurrent copy number loss at Yp11.2 involving TSPY gene cluster in prostate cancer using array-based comparative genomic hybridization. Cancer Res. Apr 15;66(8):4055-64.

Hernandez J, Balic I, Johnson-Pais TL, Higgins BA, Torkko KC, Thompson IM, Leach RJ (2006)
Association between an estrogen receptor alpha gene (ESR1) polymorphism and the risk of prostate cancer in African Americans. J Urol. Feb;175(2):523-7.

Lehman DM, Fu DJ, Freeman AB, Hunt KJ, Leach RJ, Johnson-Pais T, Hamlington J, Dyer TD, Arya R, Abboud H, Goring HH, Duggirala R, Blangero J, Konrad RJ, Stern MP. (2005) A single nucleotide polymorphism in MGEA5 encoding O-GlcNAc-selective N-acetyl-beta-D glucosaminidase is associated with type 2 diabetes in Mexican Americans. Diabetes Apr;54(4):1214-21.

Hunt KJ, Lehman DM, Arya R, Goring HH, Fowler S, Leach RJ, Almasy L, Blangero J, Dyer T, Duggirarla R, Stern M (2005) Genome-wide linkage analysis of type 2 diabetes in Mexican Americans: The San Antonio Family Diabetes/Gallbladder Study. Diabetes Sep;54(9):2655-62.

Walss-Bass C, Escamilla MA, Raventos H, Montero AP, Armas R, Dassori A, Contreras S, Medina R, Balderas TG, Liu W, Levingson D, Benavides E, Rodriguez S, Pereira R, Pereira M, Atmella I, Salazar R, Castro R, Saenz J, NeSmith L, Gararz JJ, Katz I, Leach R, Almasy L (2005) Evidence for genetic overlap of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: Linkage disequilibrium analysis of chromosome 18 in the Costa Rica population. Am J Med Genet Part B: Neuropsych Genet. Nov 5;139(1):54-60.