Biography

Dr. Kevin Pruitt began his formal education at the University of Texas at Austin where he received a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering (1995). Afterwards, he pursued post-baccalaureate research training in the biological sciences at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He then moved on to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and under the direction of Dr. Channing J. Der, completed Ph.D training in Pharmacology (2001). Dr. Pruitt’s interest in epigenetics began during a short stint of postdoctoral training with Dr. Yi Zhang, Howard Hughes investigator, at the Lineberger Cancer Center at UNC. The next phase of postdoctoral training occurred under the direction of Dr. Stephen Baylin at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Department of Oncology (2006). There, Dr. Pruitt’s interest in cancer epigenetics grew rapidly.

Dr. Pruitt has received numerous awards throughout his research career, some of which include the Hoechst-Celanese Corporation Research Scholarship Award, the Graduate School Excellence Award, the Merck-UNCF Graduate Science Research Dissertation Fellowship, and the Eli Lilly AACR Scholar in Training Award. He was also a National Science Foundation pre-doctoral fellow and an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow during his formal training. Currently, Dr. Pruitt serves as an Ad-hoc reviewer for several journals and serves as an Ad-hoc reviewer for the DOD Breast Cancer Research Program.

Research

The Pruitt laboratory is interested in the defining how the sirtuin proteins regulate cellular processes altered during breast and colon tumorigenesis. The most prominent member of this family, SIRT1, has received considerable attention because of its link with human metabolism, diet and cancer. We have identified novel links between sirtuin deacetylases and several key components of the Wnt signaling pathway. The long-term focus of our laboratory involves two broad areas.

First, we are interested in identifying novel upstream regulators of sirtuin proteins and identifying novel downstream targets for deacetylation. Additionally, we are interested in understanding how these regulators and targets may contribute to breast and colon cancer epigenetic alterations. Second, we are examining the role of SIRT1 in Wnt signaling. Studies are focused on defining the mechanism by which SIRT1 regulates both canonical and non-canonical Wnt signaling. For postdoctoral training opportunities, please contact us at kpruit@lsuhsc.edu.