O. John Semmes, Ph.D.

Scientific Director, Virginia Prostate Center
Director, George L. Wright, Jr., Center for Biomedical Proteomics
Professor, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Cell Biology
Professor, Department of Pathology and Anatomy

Lewis Hall, #314
Office: (757) 446-5904
Email: semmesoj@evms.edu

Teaching: Virology, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology

Biomedical Sciences Program Track: Cell Biology and Molecular Pathogenesis

Basic Science Focal Research Groups: Cancer Biology and Virology

Education

• B.S., Auburn University
• M.S., University of West Florida
• Ph.D. George Washington University
• Postdoctoral Training:
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  • Johns Hopkins University

Clinical Proteomics

Dr. Semmes directs a multi-disciplinary team of investigators with the long-term goal of the development and application of clinical proteomics techniques to the early detection of cancer. This program brings together a unique group of individuals with the experience and expertise needed to achieve the objectives of biomarker discovery within the existing national and international collaborative efforts, most notably the National Cancer Institute’s Early Detection Research Network.

The basic science expertise is in molecular biology, protein chemistry and cancer biology, as well as experimental applied mathematics, physical chemistry and mass spectroscopy. Clinical expertise is in urological oncology, OB/GYN (breast) oncology, otolaryngeal oncology and molecular pathology. This team of investigators forms the basis for Dr. Semmes’ successful translational research program. In addition, the group includes biocomputational mathematicians, biostatisticians and programmers to design and evaluate studies, as well as develop methodologies to facilitate data processing in the emerging field of clinical proteomics. These are faculty members at either EVMS or at our neighboring institution, the College of William and Mary.

These research activities benefit from the combined facilities provided by three specialized centers of excellence: The Virginia Prostate Center, of which Dr. Semmes is the scientific director, houses and supports the VPC Clinical Biorepository and the George L. Wright Center for Biomedical Proteomics. The biorepository has been in operation since 1990 and has collected tissue and body fluids from patients admitted to the EVMS-associated clinical practices. Since these clinical facilities represent the major clinical practice for many of the included specialties in the Tidewater Virginia area, the ability to acquire samples is significant. Dr. Semmes established the Center for Biomedical Proteomics in 2002 to meet the growing demands for state-of-the-art proteomics in translational research; the facility was recognized by EVMS and named in honor of George L. Wright in 2005. The Applied Research Center of the Thomas Jefferson Laboratories houses the William and Mary Research Institute activities and provides state-of-the-art laser, materials and chemical physics facilities, and the Applied Mathematics program at William and Mary provides computational expertise in high-dimensional data analysis and associated networking support. Each of these specialized facilities contributes significantly toward an outstanding research environment.

Cancers Arising from Infectious Agents

Infection with Human T-cell leukemia Virus (HTLV-1) leads to development of a particularly aggressive T-cell lymphoproliferative disease, Adult T-cell leukemia (ATL). HTLV-1 is the only known transforming retrovirus. However, unlike the case with other known transforming retroviruses, ATL does not arise from viral introduction of an oncogene or insertional activation of an endogenous proto-oncogene. The objective of our studies is to understand the mechanisms by which HTLV-1 causes ATL. We are particularly focusing on the viral transactivator Tax, a 40kD protein required for efficient transcription of the viral genome, and for activating and repressing a variety of cellular genes involved in control of cell growth.

Selected Publications

• Schwegler EE, Cazares L, Steel LF, Adam BL, Johnson DA, Semmes OJ, Block TM, Marrero JA and Drake RR. (2005) SELDI-TOF MS Profiling of Serum for Detection of the Progression of Chronic Hepatitis C to Hepatocellular Carcinoma. Hepatology 41(3):634-642. Abstract
   
• Malyarenko DI, Chen H, Wilkerson AL, Tracy ER, Cooke WE, Manos DM, Sasinowski M and Semmes OJ. (2005) Preprocessing of Mass Spectral Data to Improve Linear Range. Clinical Chemistry 51(1):65-74. Abstract
   
• Drake RR, Cazares LH, Semmes OJ, and Wadsworth JT. (2005) Serum, salivary and tissue proteomics for discovery of biomarkers for head and neck cancers. Expert Reviews Molecular Diagnostics 5(1):93-100. Abstract
   
• Semmes OJ, and EPSIC members. (2005) SELDI profiling of serum for detection of PCA; Evaluation of platform reproducibility. Clinical Chemistry 51(1):102-112. Abstract
   
• Malik G, Ward M, Adam B-L, Grizzle WM, Diaz J and Semmes OJ. (2005) Over-expression of Apo A2 in serum as a diagnostic marker for PCA. Clin. Cancer Res. 2005 11: 1073-1085 Abstract
   
• Gupta SK, Forgacs E, Burton M, Kerry J and Semmes OJ. (2005) ATF5 directly interacts with Tax and the Tax Responsive Element and represses Tax transactivation. Journal of Virology Abstract
   
• Semmes OJ, Cazares L, Ward MD, Maloney E, Hisada M, Gygi S, Wright GL, and Jacobson S. (2005) Discrete protein signatures discriminate between adult T-cell leukemia and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy. Leukemia 19:1229-1238. Abstract
   
• Semmes OJ. (2004) Defining the role of mass spectrometry in cancer diagnostics. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarker and Prevention 13(10):1555-1557. Abstract
   
• Becker S, Cazares LH, Watson P, Lynch H, Semmes OJ, Drake RR, and Laronga C. (2004) Surfaced-enhanced laser desorption/ ionization time-of-flight (SELDI-TOF) differentiation of serum protein profiles of BRCA-1 and sporadic breast cancer. Annals of Surgical Oncology 11(10):907-914. Abstract
   
• Malyarenko DI, Chen H, Wilkerson AL, Tracy ER, Cooke WE, Manos DM, Sasinowski M and Semmes OJ. (2004) Ga+ TOF-SIMS Lineshape Analysis for Resolution Enhancement of MALDI MS Spectra of a Peptide Mixture. Applied Surface Science 231-232:357-361. Abstract
   
• Laronga C, Becker S, Cazares L, Drake R, and Semmes OJ. (2004) SELDI-TOF serum profiling for prognostic and diagnostic classification of breast cancer. Disease Markers 19:229-238. Abstract
   
• Grizzle W, Semmes OJ, Feng Z, Srivastava S, Izicka E, Basler J and Thompson I. (2004) The EDRN SELDI prostate cancer detection study: a study in biomarker validation in GU oncology. Urologic Oncology 22:337-343. Abstract
   
• Diaz JI, Cazares LH, Corica A, and Semmes OJ. (2004) Discovery of protein expression differences in prostate basal cells and epithelial cells may be indicative of early transformation. Urologic Oncology 22:224-230. Abstract
   
• Wagner M, Naik DN, Pothen A, Kasukurti S, Devinemi RR, Adam BL, Semmes OJ, and Wright GL. (2004) Computational protein biomarker prediction: a case study for prostate cancer. BMC Bioinformatics 5:26. Abstract
   
• Pusztai L, Gregory BW, Baggerly KA, Peng B, Koomen J, Kuerer HM, Esteva FJ, Symmans WF, Wagner P, Hortobagyi GN, Laronga C, Semmes OJ, Wright GL, Drake RR, Vlahou A. (2004) Pharmacoproteomic analysis of prechemotherapy and postchemotherapy plasma samples from patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy for breast carcinoma. Cancer 100:1814-1822. Abstract
   
• Grizzle W, Adam BL, Bigbee WL, Conrads TP, Carroll C, Feng Z, Izbecka E, Jendoubi M, Johnsey D, Kagan J, Leach RJ, McCarthy DB, Semmes OJ, Srivastavas S, Srivastava S, Thompson I, Thornquist MD, Verma M, Zhang Z, Zou Z. (2004) Validation of SELDI-TOF Protein Profiling for Identification of Prostate Cancer. Disease Markers 19:185-195. Abstract
   
• Liggett W, Barker P, Semmes OJ, and Cazares LH. (2004) Metrologic analysis in the early stage of biomarker discovery. Disease Markers 20:295-307 Abstract
   
• Gelman E, and Semmes OJ. (2004) Expression of genes and proteins specific for prostate cancer. J. Urology 172:S23-27. Abstract
   
• Vlahou A, Giannopoulos A, Gregory BW, Manousakas T, Kondylis FI, Wilson L, Schellhammer P, Wright GL and Semmes OJ. (2004) Urinary protein profiling of bladder cancer patients by decision tree classification of mass spectral data. Clinical Chemistry 50:1438-1441. Abstract
   
• Feng Z,  Yasui Y, McLerran D, Adam B.-L. and Semmes OJ. (2004) Statistical Design and Analytical Strategies for Discovery of Disease-Specific Protein Patterns. (in press) Haoudi A, Semmes OJ, Mason JM and Cannon RE. (2004) Retrotransposition of human LINE-1 inhibits cancer cell growth by inducing apoptosis. Journal of Biochemistry and Biomedicine (in press) Abstract
   
• Wadsworth JT, Somers KD, Cazares LH, Adam BL, Stack BC, Wright GL and Semmes OJ. (2004) Serum protein profiles to identify head and neck cancer. Clinical Cancer Research 10:1625-1632. Abstract
   
• Comunale MA, Mattu TS, Lowman MA, Evans AA, London WT, Semmes OJ, Ward M, Drake R, Romano PR, Steele LF, Block TM, Mehta A. (2004) Comparative proteomic analysis of de-N-glycosylated serum from hepatitis B carriers reveals polypeptides that correlate with disease status. Proteomics 4:826-838. Abstract
   
• Liggett W, Cazares L, and Semmes OJ. (2003) A look at mass spectral measurement. Chance 16: 24-29. Chance
   
• Twizere J-C, Kruys V, Lefèbvre L, Vanderplasschen A, Collete D, Debacq C, Lai WS, Jauniaux J-C, Bernstein L, Semmes OJ, Burny A, Blackshear P, Kettmann R and Willems L. (2003) Tax oncoproteins interact with tristetraprolin and regulate TNF-alpha expression. JNCI 95:1846-1859. Abstract
   
• Haoudi A, Daniels RC, Wong E, Kupfer G, and Semmes OJ. (2003) HTLV-I Tax Gene Functionally Interacts with a Subnuclear Complex Containing chk2 and 53BP1. Journal of Biological Chemistry 278:37736-37744. Abstract
   
• Wadsworth JT, Somers KD, Cazares LH, Adam BL, Stack BC, Wright GL and Semmes OJ. (2004) Distinguishing Healthy Smokers from Head and Neck Cancer. Archives of Otolaryngology HN Surgery 130:98-104. Abstract
   
• Vlahou A, Laronga C, Wilson L, Gregory B, Fournier K, Perry RR, Wright GL, and Semmes OJ. (2003) A novel approach towards development of a rapid blood test for breast cancer. Clinical Breast Cancer 4:203-209. Abstract
   
• Haoudi A, and Semmes OJ (2003) The HTLV-1 Tax Oncoprotein Attenuates G1 Arrest and Induces Apoptosis in P53 Null Cells. Virology, 305:229-239. Abstract

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