Rodrigo Romero

The Romero laboratory studies the molecular and epigenetic mechanisms that govern lineage plasticity and therapy resistance in cancer. We seek to understand how tumor cells change identity in response to genetic perturbation, environmental stress, and therapeutic pressure. Using prostate and lung cancer as model systems, we investigate how tumor suppressors such as RB1, lineage-defining transcription factors, chromatin regulators, and the tumor microenvironment cooperate to reshape cell fate programs. Our research integrates genetically engineered mouse models (GEMMs), organoid models, CRISPR-based perturbation, lineage tracing, and screening approaches, chromatin profiling (ATAC-seq, CUT&RUN/ChIP-seq), single-cell transcriptomics, and multiplexed imaging combined with spatial transcriptomics to define how transcriptional and epigenetic networks control tumor evolution and clonal expansion in vivo.