Research
Everyone either knows someone who has cancer or who has had cancer – it’s too common, and we seek to change that. The Tiek lab is interested in drug-resistant pediatric and adult brain tumors with a focus on metabolism within both the tumor itself and the surrounding brain. Because the brain is a complex organ, we use many different methods and span multiple areas of investigation to determine how the tumor is able to both continue to grow after treatment and avoid detection by the immune system.
My team and I strive to understand brain tumors and their natural environment in such mechanistic detail that we are then able to create smarter drugs for these deadly diseases. We seek creative thinkers who have a collaborative spirit and desire to make a significant impact in developing these treatments.
Biography
Deanna Tiek, PhD, is Assistant Staff and Principal Investigator of the Tiek lab in the Center for Immunotherapy and Precision Immuno-Oncology.
Dr. Tiek started her journey at Vanderbilt University, where she received a dual BA in both Spanish and Molecular and Cellular Biology, with a minor in Chemistry in 2014. She then went on to earn her PhD at Georgetown University in Tumor Biology several years later, where she received the NCI F99/K00 pre-doctoral to postdoctoral grant. This allowed her to quickly proceed to her postdoctoral work with Dr. Shi-Yuan Cheng at Northwestern University (2019-2025). Here, she continued her work on drug-resistant gliomas from her PhD thesis and was awarded both philanthropy grants (H Foundation) as well as national grants (DoD Rare Cancers Research Program Concept Award and the NCI K99/R00). In 2025, Dr. Tiek started her lab at the Cleveland Clinic with a focus on redox biology in therapy-resistant gliomas.
Education & Professional Highlights
Appointed
2025
Education & Fellowships
Postdoctoral Fellowship - Northwestern University
Neuro-Oncology/Cancer Biology
Chicago, IL USA
2018
Graduate - Georgetown University
Cancer Biology
Washington, D.C. USA
2019
Undergraduate - Vanderbilt University
Cellular and Molecular Biology/Spanish
Nashville, TN USA
2014
Awards & Honors
- Malnati Brain Tumor Institute Pediatric Project Award
- NCI K99/R00 Transition Award
- DoD Rare Cancers Research Program Award
- Dickson Award for Outstanding Graduate Student
- Gordon Research Conference Discussion Leader for “Post-Transcriptional Gene Regulation”
- NCI F99/K00 Transition Award
- Genomics Shared Resources (GESR) Illumina Sequencing Mini Grant
Research
Overview
The overall goal of the Tiek Lab is to decipher the mechanistic underpinnings of the metabolic flux during and after therapeutic intervention. Using specialized proteomics, metabolomics, and protein sensors, our goal is to determine what metabolic pathways can be targeted in gliomas and the best window of opportunity for successful intervention.
The Tiek Lab has ongoing projects in both adult and pediatric gliomas.
Adult glioblastoma (GBM)
GBM is a deadly disease that is almost universally treated with temozolomide (TMZ). Unfortunately, therapy resistance is rapid and universally fatal. For these reasons we seek to use changes in metabolism and oxidation state flux to determine pathways that may be essential for sustained tumor growth. Using IA-DTB cysteine oxidation proteomics, structural analyses, and in-depth metabolic tracing – we have discovered the importance of cysteine and thiol metabolism and the noncanonical pathways in which TMZ-R GBM cells utilize this fascinating amino acid. Our ongoing studies are working on designing drugs that can specifically target these oxidation state changes and developing patient selection biomarkers.
Pediatric gliomas
Diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs) are a devastating subset of pediatric gliomas that are characterized by histone mutations. Specifically, histone 3 is either maintained in a wild-type state, or gains a H3K27M or H3G34R/V mutation. These histone mutations are mostly unique to pediatric gliomas and have broad transcriptional effects as the histone code has been fundamentally disrupted. While most studies have been focused on these important transcriptome effects, we are interested in how this new addition of methionine is affecting global methionine metabolism as it is one of two sulfur containing amino acids and is an essential amino acid. This project seeks to determine how methionine metabolism is affected in H3K27M tumors at the molecular level with heavy isotope tracing and proteomics to determine new protein partners and noncanonical methionine usage patterns.
Our Team
Selected Publications
Yu X, Song X, Tiek D, Wu R, Walker M, Horbinski C, Hu B, Cheng SY. Targeting PDGFRA-SHP2 Signaling Enhances Radiotherapy in IDH1-Mutant Glioma. Neuro Oncol. 2025 Mar 25;. doi: 10.1093/neuonc/noaf086. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 40128633.
Tiek D, Song X, Yu X, Wu R, Iglesia R, Catezone A, McCortney K, Walshon J, Horbinski C, Jamshidi P, Castellani R, Vassar R, Miska J, Hu B, Cheng SY. Oxidative stress induced protein aggregation via GGCT produced pyroglutamic acid in drug resistant glioblastoma. iScience. 2025 Feb 21;28(2):111769. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.111769. eCollection 2025 Feb 21. PubMed PMID: 39949960; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11821397.
Song X, Tiek D, Miki S, Huang T, Lu M, Goenka A, Iglesia R, Yu X, Wu R, Walker M, Zeng C, Shah H, Weng SHS, Huff A, Zhang W, Koga T, Hubert C, Horbinski CM, Furnari FB, Hu B, Cheng SY. RNA splicing analysis deciphers developmental hierarchies and reveals therapeutic targets in adult glioma. J Clin Invest. 2024 Apr 25;134(11). doi: 10.1172/JCI173789. PubMed PMID: 38662454; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11142752.
Bhutada I, Khambati F, Cheng SY, Tiek DM, Duckett D, Lawrence H, Vogelbaum MA, Mo Q, Chellappan SP, Padmanabhan J. CDK7 and CDK9 inhibition interferes with transcription, translation, and stemness, and induces cytotoxicity in GBM irrespective of temozolomide sensitivity. Neuro Oncol. 2024 Jan 5;26(1):70-84. doi: 10.1093/neuonc/noad143. PubMed PMID: 37551745; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10768977.
Tiek D, Wells CI, Schröder M, Song X, Alamillo-Ferrer C, Goenka A, Iglesia R, Lu M, Hu B, Kwarcinski F, Sintha P, de Silva C, Hossain MA, Picado A, Zuercher W, Zutshi R, Knapp S, Riggins RB, Cheng SY, Drewry DH. SGC-CLK-1: A chemical probe for the Cdc2-like kinases CLK1, CLK2, and CLK4. Curr Res Chem Biol. 2023;3. doi: 10.1016/j.crchbi.2023.100045. Epub 2023 Sep 22. PubMed PMID: 38009092; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10673624.
Goenka A, Song X, Tiek D, Iglesia RP, Lu M, Zeng C, Horbinski C, Zhang W, Hu B, Cheng SY. Oncogenic long noncoding RNA LINC02283 enhances PDGF receptor A-mediated signaling and drives glioblastoma tumorigenesis. Neuro Oncol. 2023 Sep 5;25(9):1592-1604. doi: 10.1093/neuonc/noad065. PubMed PMID: 36988488; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10479875.
Goenka A, Tiek DM, Song X, Iglesia RP, Lu M, Hu B, Cheng SY. The Role of Non-Coding RNAs in Glioma. Biomedicines. 2022 Aug 20;10(8). doi: 10.3390/biomedicines10082031. Review. PubMed PMID: 36009578; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9405925.
Tiek DM, Erdogdu B, Razaghi R, Jin L, Sadowski N, Alamillo-Ferrer C, Hogg JR, Haddad BR, Drewry DH, Wells CI, Pickett JE, Song X, Goenka A, Hu B, Goldlust SA, Zuercher WJ, Pertea M, Timp W, Cheng SY, Riggins RB. Temozolomide-induced guanine mutations create exploitable vulnerabilities of guanine-rich DNA and RNA regions in drug-resistant gliomas. Sci Adv. 2022 Jun 24;8(25):eabn3471. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abn3471. Epub 2022 Jun 22. PubMed PMID: 35731869; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9216507.
Tiek D, Cheng SY. DNA damage and metabolic mechanisms of cancer drug resistance. Cancer Drug Resist. 2022;5(2):368-379. doi: 10.20517/cdr.2021.148. eCollection 2022. Review. PubMed PMID: 35800362; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9255237.
Tiek DM, Cheng SY. New life for an old therapy: ELTD1 as a downstream target of angiogenesis. Neuro Oncol. 2022 Mar 12;24(3):412-413. doi: 10.1093/neuonc/noab286. PubMed PMID: 35015881; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8917398.
Huang T, Yang Y, Song X, Wan X, Wu B, Sastry N, Horbinski CM, Zeng C, Tiek D, Goenka A, Liu F, Brennan CW, Kessler JA, Stupp R, Nakano I, Sulman EP, Nishikawa R, James CD, Zhang W, Xu W, Hu B, Cheng SY. PRMT6 methylation of RCC1 regulates mitosis, tumorigenicity, and radiation response of glioblastoma stem cells. Mol Cell. 2021 Mar 18;81(6):1276-1291.e9. doi: 10.1016/j.molcel.2021.01.015. Epub 2021 Feb 3. PubMed PMID: 33539787; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7979509.
Goenka A, Tiek D, Song X, Huang T, Hu B, Cheng SY. The Many Facets of Therapy Resistance and Tumor Recurrence in Glioblastoma. Cells. 2021 Feb 24;10(3). doi: 10.3390/cells10030484. Review. PubMed PMID: 33668200; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7995978.
Huang T, Song X, Xu D, Tiek D, Goenka A, Wu B, Sastry N, Hu B, Cheng SY. Stem cell programs in cancer initiation, progression, and therapy resistance. Theranostics. 2020;10(19):8721-8743. doi: 10.7150/thno.41648. eCollection 2020. Review. PubMed PMID: 32754274; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7392012.
Tiek DM, Khatib SA, Trepicchio CJ, Heckler MM, Divekar SD, Sarkaria JN, Glasgow E, Riggins RB. Estrogen-related receptor β activation and isoform shifting by cdc2-like kinase inhibition restricts migration and intracranial tumor growth in glioblastoma. FASEB J. 2019 Dec;33(12):13476-13491. doi: 10.1096/fj.201901075R. Epub 2019 Sep 28. PubMed PMID: 31570001; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6894094.
Tiek DM, Rone JD, Graham GT, Pannkuk EL, Haddad BR, Riggins RB. Alterations in Cell Motility, Proliferation, and Metabolism in Novel Models of Acquired Temozolomide Resistant Glioblastoma. Sci Rep. 2018 May 8;8(1):7222. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-25588-1. PubMed PMID: 29740146; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5940876.
Wathieu H, Issa NT, Fernandez AI, Mohandoss M, Tiek DM, Franke JL, Byers SW, Riggins RB, Dakshanamurthy S. Differential prioritization of therapies to subtypes of triple negative breast cancer using a systems medicine method. Oncotarget. 2017 Nov 3;8(54):92926-92942. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.21669. eCollection 2017 Nov 3. PubMed PMID: 29190967; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5696233.
Heckler MM, Zeleke TZ, Divekar SD, Fernandez AI, Tiek DM, Woodrick J, Farzanegan A, Roy R, Üren A, Mueller SC, Riggins RB. Antimitotic activity of DY131 and the estrogen-related receptor beta 2 (ERRβ2) splice variant in breast cancer. Oncotarget. 2016 Jul 26;7(30):47201-47220. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.9719. PubMed PMID: 27363015; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC5216935.
Divekar SD, Tiek DM, Fernandez A, Riggins RB. Estrogen-related receptor β (ERRβ) - renaissance receptor or receptor renaissance?. Nucl Recept Signal. 2016;14:e002. doi: 10.1621/nrs.14002. eCollection 2016. Review. PubMed PMID: 27507929; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4978380.
Careers
If you are interested in becoming a member of the lab and would like to inquire about open positions, please contact Dr. Deanna Tiek ([email protected]).