Charles Keller, M.D., joined the Greehey Children's Cancer Research Institute in January of 2005 with major faculty responsibilities as a Principal Investigator in Developmental Cancer Genetics and Therapeutics and Assistant Professor in the Department of Cellular and Structural Biology. Dr. Keller attended Tulane University where he received a degree in Biomedical Engineering prior to attending Baylor College of Medicine where he received his M.D. degree. After completing his internship and residency in Pediatrics at Texas Children's Hospital, Dr. Keller trained in Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at the University of Utah and as a post-doctoral fellow in Mario Capecchi's laboratory.

 

Dr. Keller is a board-certified pediatric oncologist specializing in the development of more effective, less toxic therapies for a type of childhood muscle cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma, and a type of childhood brain tumor called medulloblastoma. His special interest is advanced disease that has spread beyond the initial location of the cancer. Dr. Keller is investigating whether the genes thought to be responsible for the initial tumors are also important when the disease progresses, thereby identifying targets for new medical therapies.

 

As the major focus of research, Dr. Keller has developed and studies mouse models of rhabdomyosarcoma and medulloblastoma. Using conditional genetics to temporally and spatially restrict Pax3:Fkhr oncogene expression to subsets of embryonic and postnatal muscle cell precursors, it is hoped that rhabdomyosarcomas can be understood in terms of their cell of origin while at the same time unraveling the step-by-step process of rhabdomyosarcoma formation, angiogenesis, and metastasis.   Dr. Keller is also Director of the GCCRI Small Animal Imaging Facility, which provides service and conducts research into anatomical and molecular imaging methods for mouse models of human disease.