Kyle Kurek

My laboratory studies congenital and childhood malformations, overgrowths, and tumors; focusing on those involving the skeletal, vascular, and connective tissue systems of the body.

Currently, our lab is studying a recently described class of aggressive childhood vascular malformations (kaposiform types) that, based on clinical behavior and outcomes, blur the traditional lines between a malformation and malignant process. We have sequenced tissues from several affected patients with the hope of better defining these entities, modeling their disease processes in the lab, and identifying desperately needed therapeutics for affected children. Additionally, we are planning to use single cell omics approaches to better understand how overgrowths and malformations can develop and sustain growth given the low copy number of mutant allele in lesional tissues. Finally, as a practicing pediatric pathologist, I maintain several collaborative projects involving biomarker identification for other pediatric solid tumors.