Juan Manuel Povedano Selfa, Ph.D. | IM-OPSD Research Conference

Internal Medicine Research and the Office of Physician-Scientist Development Present:

"Discovering Cancer Vulnerabilities Through Chemical Genetics"

Speaker:

Juan Manuel "Juanma" Povedano Selfa, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine
Division of Endocrinology
UT Southwestern Medical Center

About Juanma Povedano Selfa:

Originally from Spain, Dr. Povedano Selfa holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Alcala, and a master’s degree in molecular biomedicine from the University of Autonoma of Madrid, where he also completed his doctoral degree in molecular biology with highest honors. Prior to joining the UT Southwestern faculty in 2023, he conducted postdoctoral research in the laboratory of David McFadden, M.D., Ph.D.

His research program focuses on identifying druggable vulnerabilities in cancers driven by elusive targets, with a particular emphasis on small cell lung cancer, an aggressive disease with few effective treatment options. Small cell lung cancer is characterized by loss-of-function mutations in the tumor suppressors TP53 and RB1, and unlike other lung cancer subtypes, it lacks actionable oncogenic mutations, contributing to minimal improvements in patient outcomes over the past four decades. To address this gap, Dr. Povedano Selfa’s laboratory employs high-throughput phenotypic small-molecule screening and genome-wide CRISPR screening to uncover chemically tractable dependencies. Using murine cancer cell lines derived from genetically engineered mouse models alongside a broad panel of patient-derived cell lines, the lab has identified small molecules with selective toxicity against small cell lung cancer.