Among my current research activities is serving as principal investigator (PI) for a National Cancer Institute (NCI) grant-funded study of the role of p21-activated kinases in thyroid cancer. My colleagues and I have identified a potentially important pathway (p21 activated kinase, or PAK) downstream of the BRAF gene that may be involved in the progression of papillary thyroid cancer, which is incurable when metastatic and progressive. My team hopes to determine the relevance of the PAK pathway in vivo, clarify the mechanism by which it is activated and test novel compounds that block PAK activation with the goal of determining whether PAK is a viable therapeutic target.