Lucas Rodrigues

Dr. Lucas Rodrigues is a veterinarian at FidoCure investigating the impact of DNA mutations on tumor behavior, evaluating treatment possibilities based on genomic profiles, and performing scientific research for conferences and manuscript publications. He is an experienced investigator with deep knowledge of clinical oncology and molecular biology and 15 years of experience in comparative oncology.

Dr. Rodrigues received his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine from the University of Paulista in São Paulo, Brazil. After that, he completed his Master's and Ph.D. degrees at the Universidade of São Paulo. He has significant experience in molecular biology, which was acquired during his 5 years of postdoctoral research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Penn State University. He worked on several projects funded by The National Cancer Institute (NCI) and other agencies and has authored over 10 peer-reviewed journal papers and four book chapters.

During his postdoc work, Dr. Rodrigues was the first to identify the expression of FZD-6 in osteosarcoma and suggest that the increased expression suppresses the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, which in turn prevents the differentiation of cells and contributes to osteosarcoma tumor-initiating cells. While at Penn State University, he prepared the first study to report the critical role of IGF2BP1 in melanoma metastasis, in addition to being the first study to demonstrate the role of any RNA-binding protein in the extracellular vesicle-mediated promotion of metastasis.

Dr. Rodrigues is continuing his work in the field of cancer research developing personalized medicine for dogs with cancer through the use of cutting-edge technologies and taking the advantage of comparative oncology to also benefit human treatment against this devastating disease.