Gregory S. Ducker, Ph.D.

Languages spoken: English

Academic Information

Departments: Biochemistry - Assistant Professor

Academic Office Information

greg.ducker@biochem.utah.edu

(801) 213-1236

Emma Eccles Jones Medical Research Building

15 N Medical Dr E, Room: 5700B
Salt Lake City, UT

Labs

Research Interests

  • Cancer Metabolism
  • Mass Spectrometry
  • Antimetabolites
  • Chemical Biology
  • Mitochondria
  • Tetrahydrofolates

Gregory Ducker is an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry. His lab studies mammalian metabolism and its role in diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The lab utilizes mass spectrometry based approaches to quantify molecular reactions in living model systems to understanding the reaction network that support disease processes.

Research Statement

Changes in cellular metabolism underlie many diseases. For example, cancer cells must become proliferative, requiring both increases in the production of key biosynthetic building blocks and new nutrient acquisition strategies to supply them. Research in my group focuses on understanding at a molecular level the fundamental metabolic processes underlying cellular disease physiology- what pathways and processes contribute to disease and how do cells acquire the nutrients to fuel them? One long-term goal of our research is to characterize the metabolic requirements of cancer cells and tumors in vivo in order to identify and validate new therapeutic targets. Our approach is fundamentally biochemical, based on integrating new mass spectrometry technology with CRISPR/Cas9 genetic engineering to be able to precisely quantify metabolic fluxes in vivo. By starting with a fundamentals based perspective on metabolism, we are able to apply our knowledge across different cell types and disease states providing unifying theory to diverse biological presentations.

Education History

Postdoctoral Fellowship Princeton University
Cancer Metabolism 		Postdoctoral Fellow
Doctoral Training University of California, Berkeley
Chemistry 		Ph.D.
Undergraduate Carleton College
Chemistry with honors; Minor: Political Economy 		B.A.