Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Nutrition

Donald Patrick McDonnell, PhD

Professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology
Glaxo-Wellcome Distinguished Professor of Molecular Cancer Biology, in the School of Medicine
Professor in Medicine
Core Faculty in Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Member of the Duke Cancer Institute
Campus mail C238a Lev Sci Res Ctr, Durham, NC 27708
Phone (919) 684-6035
Email address donald.mcdonnell@duke.edu

The research in our group is focused on the development and application of mechanism based approaches to identify novel therapeutics for use in the treatment and prevention of hormonally responsive cancers. Specifically we are interested in the pharmaceutical exploitation of the estrogen and androgen receptors as therapeutic targets in breast and prostate cancers and in defining how these receptors influence the pathogenesis of these diseases. These efforts have led to the discovery of several drugs that are currently being evaluated in the clinic as cancer therapeutics, and to the identification of potential biomarkers and predictors of response that can help to target the use of these new drugs. Most recently we have explored approaches to treat triple negative breast cancer and have identified an important pathway that links obesity/dyslipidemia and cancer risk.

Education and Training

  • Ph.D., Baylor College of Medicine, 1988

Grants

Publications

Andreano, Kaitlyn J., Jennifer G. Baker, Sunghee Park, Rachid Safi, Sandeep Artham, Steffi Oesterreich, Rinath Jeselsohn, et al. “The Dysregulated Pharmacology of Clinically Relevant ESR1 Mutants is Normalized by Ligand-activated WT Receptor.” Mol Cancer Ther 19, no. 7 (July 2020): 1395–1405. https://doi.org/10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-19-1148.

PMID
32381587
Full Text

Mukherjee, Debarati, Robert Baldi, Ching-Yi Chang, Luigi Racioppi, and Donald P. McDonnell. “Impact of CaMKK2 inhibition in tumor-associated myeloid cells on CD8+cytotoxic T-cell recruitment into mammary tumors.” In Cancer Immunology Research, 8:56–57. AMER ASSOC CANCER RESEARCH, 2020.

Scholars@Duke

Wardell, Suzanne E., Alexander P. Yllanes, Christina A. Chao, Yeeun Bae, Kaitlyn J. Andreano, Taylor K. Desautels, Kendall A. Heetderks, Jeremy T. Blitzer, John D. Norris, and Donald P. McDonnell. “Correction to: Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic analysis of fulvestrant in preclinical models of breast cancer to assess the importance of its estrogen receptor-α degrader activity in antitumor efficacy.” Breast Cancer Res Treat 179, no. 3 (February 2020): 769. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-019-05498-0.

PMID
31734822
Full Text

Wardell, Suzanne E., Alexander P. Yllanes, Christina A. Chao, Yeeun Bae, Kaitlyn J. Andreano, Taylor K. Desautels, Kendall A. Heetderks, Jeremy T. Blitzer, John D. Norris, and Donald P. McDonnell. “Pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic analysis of fulvestrant in preclinical models of breast cancer to assess the importance of its estrogen receptor-α degrader activity in antitumor efficacy.” Breast Cancer Res Treat 179, no. 1 (January 2020): 67–77. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10549-019-05454-y.

PMID
31562570
Full Text

Ochsner, Scott A., David Abraham, Kirt Martin, Wei Ding, Apollo McOwiti, Wasula Kankanamge, Zichen Wang, et al. “The Signaling Pathways Project, an integrated 'omics knowledgebase for mammalian cellular signaling pathways.” Sci Data 6, no. 1 (October 31, 2019): 252. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0193-4.

PMID
31672983
Full Text

Cocce, Kimberly J., Jeff S. Jasper, Taylor K. Desautels, Logan Everett, Suzanne Wardell, Thomas Westerling, Robert Baldi, et al. “The Lineage Determining Factor GRHL2 Collaborates with FOXA1 to Establish a Targetable Pathway in Endocrine Therapy-Resistant Breast Cancer.” Cell Rep 29, no. 4 (October 22, 2019): 889-903.e10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.09.032.

PMID
31644911
Full Text

Gaillard, Stéphanie L., Kaitlyn J. Andreano, Laurie M. Gay, Meghan Steiner, Matthew S. Jorgensen, Brittany Anne Davidson, Laura J. Havrilesky, et al. “Constitutively active ESR1 mutations in gynecologic malignancies and clinical response to estrogen-receptor directed therapies.” Gynecol Oncol 154, no. 1 (July 2019): 199–206. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygyno.2019.04.010.

PMID
30987772
Full Text

Park, Sunghee, Rachid Safi, Xiaojing Liu, Robert Baldi, Wen Liu, Juan Liu, Jason W. Locasale, Ching-Yi Chang, and Donald P. McDonnell. “Inhibition of ERRα Prevents Mitochondrial Pyruvate Uptake Exposing NADPH-Generating Pathways as Targetable Vulnerabilities in Breast Cancer.” Cell Rep 27, no. 12 (June 18, 2019): 3587-3601.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.05.066.

PMID
31216477
Full Text

Racioppi, Luigi, Erik R. Nelson, Wei Huang, Debarati Mukherjee, Scott A. Lawrence, William Lento, Anna Maria Masci, et al. “CaMKK2 in myeloid cells is a key regulator of the immune-suppressive microenvironment in breast cancer.” Nat Commun 10, no. 1 (June 4, 2019): 2450. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10424-5.

PMID
31164648
Full Text

Coons, Laurel A., Adam B. Burkholder, Sylvia C. Hewitt, Donald P. McDonnell, and Kenneth S. Korach. “Decoding the Inversion Symmetry Underlying Transcription Factor DNA-Binding Specificity and Functionality in the Genome.” Iscience 15 (May 31, 2019): 552–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2019.04.006.

PMID
31152742
Full Text

Pages