Professional Bio
Jeffrey Franklin, PhD, is a Research Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition, Department of Medicine, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
He received his PhD at Vanderbilt University in Molecular Biology working in Bacteriophage T4 molecular genetics (advisor Gisela Mosig, PhD). He received postdoctoral training in developmental neurobiology at the NIH using the zebrafish model system (advisor Tom Sargent, PhD) and at Northwestern Medical School on Notch signaling in mouse neurogenesis (advisor Jeff Nye, MD, PhD).
Dr. Franklin has worked in the Coffey lab at Vanderbilt as a senior scientist since 2000. His scientific interests are broad and include how carcinogenesis alters signaling in stem cells leading to cancer and the roles that cell secreted vesicles, called exosomes or extracellular vesicles (EVs), non-membranous nanoparticles and secreted RNAs, play in altering the tumor microenvironment and in driving metastasis. An integral area of his research concerns the function that EGFR ligands carried by EVs in regulating specialized EGFR signaling and how non-coding RNAs (miRNAs and long-non-coding, including circular ncRNAs) have in influencing stem cell and altered neoplastic signals. He and fellow researchers found that EVs and secreted nanoparticles called exomeres and supermeres carry numerous specific signaling protein cargos and miRNAs, mRNAs and long non-coding RNAs and their trafficking can be regulated by mutant oncogenic KRAS; some of these secreted RNAs and proteins have the ability to mediate drug resistance of tumors.
Dr. Franklin has been part of the Extracellular RNA Communication Consortium (ERCC) in phases 1 and 2, common fund initiative. Current work within the consortium concerns novel methods of purifying and analyzing secreted RNA carriers, including the use of flow cytometric methods. He is also part of a PO1 program project focused on colorectal cancer (CRC) progression and drug resistance driven by EVs and secreted RNAs (PI Alissa Weaver, MD, PhD, Project 3 Robert Coffey, MD).
He is also part of the group developing a precancer atlas of CRC that uses multiplex imaging of tissue correlated with single cell RNA analysis to provide a precancer and progression model for adenomas (PIs, Robert Coffey, MD; Ken Lau, PhD, and Martha Shrubsole, PhD). Part of his work concerns the genes that control intestinal stem cell growth and differentiation and how abnormal signaling in CRC is associated with alterations in stem cell gene function. Regulation of the intestinal stem cell niche requires crosstalk between WNT and EGFR signaling pathways. Dr. Franklin and fellow researchers have found that a negative regulator of EGFR, LRIG1, is a tumor suppressor that controls intestinal stem cell function, defines a quiescent stem cell population and helps to establish the WNT/EGFR signaling homeostatic niche. Part of this work is the basis the GI SPORE (PI Robert Coffey, MD), which he participates in.
Dr. Franklin has helped to train four graduate students and nine postdoctoral fellows.
Publications
Education
PhD - Molecular Biology - Vanderbilt University, 1992
Contact
Email
Kimryn.Rathmell@Vumc.Org
Address
777 Preston Research Building
2220 Pierce Ave
Nashville, TN 37232-6307