Albert Fornace

Dr. Fornace was recruited to the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in 2006 as a Professor in the Departments of Oncology, of Biochemistry and Molecular & Cellular Biology, and of Radiation Medicine. He is also the first holder of the Molecular Cancer Research Chair at Georgetown. Previously, Dr. Fornace was Director of the John B. Little for the Radiation Sciences and Environmental Health at Harvard, and earlier led the Gene Response Section at NCI. He is an internationally recognized expert in stress-signaling mechanisms and in the top 0.5% of cited authors in the life sciences with over 57,000 citations from 439 publications and a h-index of 126 on Google Scholar (April 15, 2025), receiving a Molecular Biology Leader Award for the 2024 Edition of Research.com Ranking of Top Scientists in the field of Molecular Biology (92nd US, 140th worldwide). He also holds ten patents which are primarily for molecular toxicology and cancer diagnostics. His studies encompass many areas of cell and tissue injury with relevance to radiobiology, cancer biology, immunology, metabolomics, toxicology, and microbiome research.

Our laboratory has extensive experience in radiation carcinogenesis and radiation injury; this includes particle radiation with relevance to space radiation and also radiation therapy. In the case of high-energy particles such as space radiation or neutrons, we have shown that they are highly effective in generating senescent cells in vivo regardless of dose rate (PMID: 30275302). Signaling by radiation-induced senescent cells has adverse consequences in vivo including ongoing pro-inflammatory events that contribute to degenerative changes, accelerated aging, and cancer. This leads to an adverse positive feed-back loop leading to damage to neighboring cells and more senescent cells. Even low doses of space-radiation-like particle irradiation can cause long-term ongoing adverse stress signaling that could jeopardize astronaut health during deep space missions as well as after their return. This adverse positive-feedback loop can be markedly reduced by targeting senescent cells with senolytic and senomorphic therapeutics (PMID: 39792466), and may prove to be an effective countermeasure for a major risk in space flight. At higher radiation doses, normal tissue toxicity after radiation therapy may well be amenable to a similar approach. More recently, our laboratory has focused on immune injury responses and the impact of radiation on T cell function both at high doses, such as after a radiologic or nuclear event, as well as at lower does such as from occupational exposures.

The Fornace team has pioneered the use of -omic approaches including metabolomics for stress signaling applications with relevance to a variety of pathophysiological disorders. In the case of metabolomics, my collaborators and I have employed state-of-art mass spectrometry instrumentation to assess overall (global) changes in cellular metabolites during responses to a variety of injuries and diseases in both patients and animal models. Along with my collaborators, we established the field of radiation metabolomics over the last 20 years. Waters Corp., which is a leader in development of mass spectrometry instrumentation for metabolomics, has established the Waters Center of Innovation for Metabolomics at GU in partnership with my program, and I am the founding center director; I am also the director of the more recently formed Georgetown Center for Metabolomic Studies. I have support from multiple funding agencies to assess injury responses by radiation exposures as well as other genotoxic agents including cancer therapeutics.

Dr. Fornace has trained many postdoctoral fellows and graduate students during the course of his career and over 20 laboratory alumni are now in senior tenured faculty positions; highlights and a partial listing is at https://fornacelab.georgetown.edu/people

lab website: https://fornacelab.georgetown.edu

orcid website: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9695-085X

publications in pubmed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Fornace+A*%5Bau%5D