Research Summary

The Schaufele laboratory has a long-standing research interest in the mechanisms of action of hormones and their receptors. Emphasis has been on the regulation of global, tissue-specific gene expression patterns by DNA-binding transcription factors, including nuclear receptors, and their co-factors. In the nuclear receptor field, our studies on androgen and estrogen receptors have been oriented towards understanding their basic mechanisms of action and their roles as central regulators of the growth, respectively, of the majority of breast tumors and almost all prostate tumors. This led to the development of high throughput, highly quantitative capabilities for rapidly identifying agents that up- or down-regulate receptor activity.

We currently are incorporating that experience into a research program designed to identify new classes of pharmaceuticals for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. The growth of those tumors is strongly driven by abnormal activation of the androgen receptor. Most of those tumors initially respond to currently available androgen receptor-targeted drugs. But the tumors change over time in ways in which the drugs no longer are effective and, when a patient becomes resistant to all available drugs, the tumor unfortunately becomes lethal. Most tumors that develop such drug ‘resistance’ still rely on androgen receptors for their growth. Our research program is oriented towards creating a new class of drugs that blocks a specific variant of the androgen receptor that arises during the development of treatment resistance but that lacks the binding sites for currently available drugs. The aim of these studies is to prolong the success of prostate cancer treatment, hopefully indefinitely.

Research Funding

  • July 1, 2019 - June 30, 2023 - AR Splice Variants in Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer, Principal Investigator. Sponsor: GlaxoSmithKline Sponsored Reseach, Sponsor Award ID:
  • May 1, 2003 - March 31, 2020 - Diabetes Research Center, Co-Investigator. Sponsor: NIH/NIDDK, Sponsor Award ID: P30DK063720
  • August 1, 2015 - February 28, 2018 - Nutrition and Obesity Research Center, Director of NORC Cores. Sponsor: NIH/NIDDK, Sponsor Award ID: P30 DK098722
  • June 1, 2015 - November 30, 2016 - AR Splice Variants in Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer, Principal Investigator. Sponsor: Discovery Partnerships with Academia, GlaxoSmithKline, Sponsor Award ID:

Education

University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada, B.Sc. Honours, 1978-1992, Zoology
University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, Ph.D., 1982-1987, Molecular Biology
University of California, San Francisco, Post-Doc, 1987-1990, Molecular Endocrinology

Selected Publications

  1. Fred J Schaufele, Armaiti Mody, Heather Gibson Huddleston SAT-748 Advantages and Limitations of an Integrative Measurement for All Serum Androgens and Anti-Androgens.  View on PubMed
  2. Irina Krylova, Fred J Schaufele, Christophe Guilbert SUN-LB138 Dynamic Structural Model of Testosterone Entry Into the Unliganded Androgen Receptor.  View on PubMed
  3. Bailey K, Yazdi T, Masharani U, Tyrrell B, Butch A, Schaufele F Advantages and Limitations of Androgen Receptor-Based Methods for Detecting Anabolic Androgenic Steroid Abuse as Performance Enhancing Drugs.  View on PubMed
  4. Schaufele F Studying Nuclear Receptor Complexes in the Cellular Environment.  View on PubMed
  5. Fujinaga K, Luo Z, Schaufele F, Peterlin BM Visualization of positive transcription elongation factor b (P-TEFb) activation in living cells.  View on PubMed
  6. Catalano KJ, Maddux BA, Szary J, Youngren JF, Goldfine ID, Schaufele F Insulin resistance induced by hyperinsulinemia coincides with a persistent alteration at the insulin receptor tyrosine kinase domain.  View on PubMed
  7. Schaufele F Maximizing the quantitative accuracy and reproducibility of Förster resonance energy transfer measurement for screening by high throughput widefield microscopy.  View on PubMed
  8. Krylova I, Kumar RR, Kofoed EM, Schaufele F A versatile, bar-coded nuclear marker/reporter for live cell fluorescent and multiplexed high content imaging.  View on PubMed
  9. Schaufele F FRET analysis of androgen receptor structure and biochemistry in living cells.  View on PubMed
  10. Kofoed EM, Guerbadot M, Schaufele F Structure, affinity, and availability of estrogen receptor complexes in the cellular environment.  View on PubMed
  11. Paruthiyil S, Cvoro A, Zhao X, Wu Z, Sui Y, Staub RE, Baggett S, Herber CB, Griffin C, Tagliaferri M, Harris HA, Cohen I, Bjeldanes LF, Speed TP, Schaufele F, Leitman DC Drug and cell type-specific regulation of genes with different classes of estrogen receptor beta-selective agonists.  View on PubMed
  12. Kofoed EM, Guerbadot M, Schaufele F Dimerization between aequorea fluorescent proteins does not affect interaction between tagged estrogen receptors in living cells.  View on PubMed
  13. Day RN, Schaufele F Fluorescent protein tools for studying protein dynamics in living cells: a review.  View on PubMed
  14. Kanaani J, Patterson G, Schaufele F, Lippincott-Schwartz J, Baekkeskov S A palmitoylation cycle dynamically regulates partitioning of the GABA-synthesizing enzyme GAD65 between ER-Golgi and post-Golgi membranes.  View on PubMed
  15. Liu X, Wu B, Szary J, Kofoed EM, Schaufele F Functional sequestration of transcription factor activity by repetitive DNA.  View on PubMed
  16. Cvoro A, Paruthiyil S, Jones JO, Tzagarakis-Foster C, Clegg NJ, Tatomer D, Medina RT, Tagliaferri M, Schaufele F, Scanlan TS, Diamond MI, Cohen I, Leitman DC Selective activation of estrogen receptor-beta transcriptional pathways by an herbal extract.  View on PubMed
  17. Padron A, Li L, Kofoed EM, Schaufele F Ligand-selective interdomain conformations of estrogen receptor-alpha.  View on PubMed
  18. Adrian Padron, Li Li, Fred Schaufele Analysis of in vivo conformation: full-length estrogen receptor-alpha dimers bound by estradiol, tamoxifen, raloxifene or ICI 182780.  View on PubMed
  19. Xiaowei Liu, Bo Wu, Jaroslaw Szary, Fred Schaufele Functional sequestration of transcription factors by junk DNA.  View on PubMed
  20. Fred Schaufele, Adrian Padron, Martin Guerbadot Molecular imaging of biochemical structure and interactions in live cells, tissues and animals.  View on PubMed

Go to UCSF Profiles, powered by CTSI