From Migrant Farm Worker to Duke Scientist, Everardo Macias … – Duke University School of Medicine

Everardo Macias, PhD, assistant professor of pathology at Duke University School of Medicine, explores the complexities of prostate cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death in men.

His quest to find innovative cancer treatments mirrors his own incredible journey from a migrant farm worker to a groundbreaking scientist.

Years ago, the future he envisioned for himself was entirely different. A first-generation high school graduate working in the fields of Minnesota as a migrant farm worker, he never even planned to go to college.

Today, with human cancer genetics and advanced gene testing, hes tackling one of prostate cancers trickiest players: cancer cells that dodge usual treatments. In lab studies, his method of targeting a protein called NUAK2 successfully slowed down the lethal spread of these cells.

Although still in its preliminary stages, with one in eight men facing prostate cancer in their lifetime, every breakthrough counts.

It still baffles me how traveling in the back of a pickup truck one summer in high school got me all the way to Duke, said Macias, a member of the Duke Cancer Institute and an assistant research professor in the Department of Cell Biology.

A harrowing ride across the country, inadvertently set him on a course for higher education and a career in science.

Beyond academia, he celebrates his roots with a renowned food truck, Evelyn's Tex Mex BBQ, named after his daughter and operated with wife Lucia Collado and stepson Frank. ("Smoking good food with a little bit Tex, y un poco de Mex.")

As a Hispanic of Mexican American descent with roots in a small Texas town, my journey to becoming an independent investigator has been enriched tremendously by great mentorship and programs geared toward increasing diversity in biomedical research.

His career researching druggable targets for prostate cancer illustrates the power education and mentorship.

As a child, Macias moved back and forth between the United States and Aguascalientes, Mexico. After his parents separated, he and his four siblings settled with their mother in Sabinal, a small town in Southwest Texas.

In the summer prior to his senior year in high school, Macias traveled to northern Minnesota in the back of a pickup truck for three days with another family to work as a migrant farm worker on sugar beet farms.

Although it was far from home and the work was back-breaking, the pay was better than working on local farms in Texas. For decades, a predominantly Mexican workforce has migrated around the United States, harvesting the countrys food.

The jobs can offer government-backed benefits to address job training and seasonal unemployment, but its a way of life thats rife with labor rights violations, poor housing, and financial instability.

When he returned for senior year, his guidance counselor mentioned an opportunity in Austin, Texas, at St. Edwards University: a College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) Scholarship that would pay for the first year of college.

At the time, he wanted to be an accountant, but when he started taking general chemistry and science classes, his professors said he had a knack for it.

Although I worked on farms in Mexico and Texas, I only worked one summer as a true migrant farm worker. When I met other students in the CAMP program who were bona-fide migrant farm workers for as long as they could remember, they told stories of what they went through and how much work and suffering it took. I knew I couldnt squander the opportunity, Macias said.

As an undergraduate at St. Edwards, he held summer internships at Monsanto, the St. Louis-based manufacturer of agricultural and biochemical products.

I realized that my life had taken a 180-degree turn, that I was now conducting research on transgenic seed varieties for a company whose products I was working with in fields just three years before, he said. It hit me how powerful higher education is. It was an ah-ha moment for me.

He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from St. Edwards, but graduate school wasnt on the radar for Macias until his advisors recommended it.He would eventually earn a PhD in comparative biomedical sciences from North Carolina State University.

After refining his expertise during postdoctoral fellowships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Texas-Austin, he made a significant transition, trading his Tar Heel blue for the Blue Devil spirit.

From 2013-2015, he served as a project scientist in the Department of Surgery at Duke. After a stint as an assistant professor at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles in 2015, he rejoined Duke in 2018 as a cancer researcher.

Everardo is working at the cutting edge of prostate cancer research, said Jiaoti Huang, MD, PhD, professor and chair of the Duke Department of Pathology and member of the Duke Cancer Institute who collaborates with Macias.

His trajectory demonstrates his personal quality, perseverance, determination, and the opportunities this great country affords people of different backgrounds. His story is an inspiration to us all.

From diagnosis to treatment, the prostate cancer journey is fraught with challenges, chief among them is the task of distinguishing between deadly and less severe cases.

Very rarely, prostate cancer starts in neuroendocrine cells. Some prostate cancers become resistant to treatment and turn into neuroendocrine tumors, which are more aggressive and have a poorer outlook.

In 2022, Macias earned a Department of Defense Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) Idea Development Award to pursue new treatments for neuroendocrine tumors. The DOD recently committed to funding Macias research for three more years.

Hes principal investigator of the DOD grant that includes Huang and co-investigators, Ming Chen, PhD, associate professor in pathology; and Jung Wook Park, PhD, assistant professor of pathology.

Macias lab delves into the genetics behind tumor growth, focusing on targets with tangible clinical implications. Through functional genomic screens, he has identified lesser-known protein kinases that are critical to prostate cancer tumor growth.Kinases are high-value targets because they are potentially susceptible to drug treatments.

In lab experiments, Macias and colleagues discovered that blocking NUAK2, a protein kinase prevalent in prostate cancer cells, curtailed neuroendocrine tumor cell growth.

In human cancer samples, NUAK2 gene levels were found to be highest in the lethal neuroendocrine prostate cancer subtype, Macias said. NUAK2 may be a key factor in taking on these tough tumors.

Using his research as a starting point, he collaborates with medicinal chemists and structural biologists to pinpoint pharmacological molecules in cancer cells to target with medicines, aiming for an approach that could save lives from prostate cancer.

In a career backed by major grants and teamwork with top-notch scientists, he ranks mentoring his first graduate student, Amelia Schirmer, PhD, a skilled cancer researcher, as one of his proudest achievements.

"He took a chance on me as his first student, said Schirmer who credits Macias for a productive graduate experience at Duke. I learned a lot and I will always be grateful for Dr. Macias and his mentorship.

Macias is one of nearly 40 Duke faculty mentors in the Duke Preparing Research Scholars in Biomedical Sciences Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program (PRIME-PREP).