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Dr. Starr is a Tenured Associate Professor and received his B.S. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. Before entering graduate school, Dr. Starr served for two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay, South America. He also worked for eight years in the Twin Cities to promote sustainable agriculture and for four years as a high school science teacher in Minnesota and Hawaii. Dr. Starr returned to the University of Minnesota and earned his Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology & Genetics while working in the laboratory of Dr. Kristin Hogquist. His Ph.D. thesis focused on understanding T cell development in the thymus. After receiving his doctorate, Dr. Starr moved to the field of cancer research and worked as a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. David Largaespada's laboratory.Leadership rolesDr. Starr leads the Ovarian Supergroup, is co-chair of the Ob-Gyn Research Committee, and is faculty advisor to the Career Development Committee of the Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology graduate program
Dr. Starr’s research is aimed at understanding the genetic basis of cancer in order to develop individualized, targeted therapies. In order to identify new drug targets and to understand the signaling pathways that cause cancer, Dr. Starr has developed an in vivo model that can be used to pinpoint the genetic changes that lead to cancer. The model uses the Sleeping Beauty DNA transposon as a mutagen and he is currently using this model to find genetic changes that cause ovarian, lung and colon cancer.Research ProjectsCurrent research in the Starr lab is focused in three areas. First, we are performing forward genetic screens in mice using the Sleeping Beauty DNA transposon to identify genes that, when mutated, cause ovarian and lung cancer. Second we are studying the function of six cancer genes that we already discovered to see if they play a significant role in causing cancer and if they can be targeted for therapy. Finally, we are developing a pre-clinical mouse model of ovarian cancer that can be used to test multiple drugs simultaneously.