June 6, 2018:

Investigator Spotlight

Emily Dykhuizen, PhD Purdue University Center for Cancer Research 

Educational Background

• BA, Reed College, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
• PhD, UW-Madison, Chemistry
• Postdoc, Stanford University, Chromatin Biology

Research Interests

My lab works on understanding the role of chromatin regulation on cancer initiation and progression. More specifically, we look at how chromatin regulators regulate gene expression in response to environmental changes. From this information we outline how patient mutations found in chromatin regulators cooperate with the metabolic environment to promote cancer. We then develop strategies to inhibit these pathways to treat a variety of highly chemoresistant cancers such as glioblastoma, kidney cancer, and ovarian cancers.

My lab collaborates with chemists, structural biologists, biochemists and cancer biologists across the Big Ten to identify how chromatin regulators contribute to cancer initiation, cancer metastasis and chemotherapy resistance, and most importantly, to identify how we can target these processes with novel small molecules to help patients with deadly cancers.

Read More

May 12, 2018:

Investigator Spotlight

Monika Joshi, MD, MRCP, Penn State Cancer Institute 

Educational Background

• MB, BS, Kasturba Medical College, Manipal Academy of Higher Education
• Member of Royal College of Physicians, London
• MD Residency, Internal Medicine, Pinnacle Health Hospitals
• Hematology/Oncology Fellowship, Penn State Cancer Institute, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center

Research Interests

My clinical and research interests lie primarily in the field of genitourinary (GU) tumors, developing novel therapeutic combinations and biomarkers for GU cancer of the bladder, kidney and prostate. I have a keen interest in developing novel combination therapies with immunotherapy. For example, bladder cancer is considered aggressive, and checkpoint blockade immunotherapy has shown efficacy in this disease. Unfortunately, the therapy only works in approximately 25 percent of patients. Research suggests that priming the immune system with radiation could convert some non-responders to responders. We are currently investigating the role of adding radiation to a checkpoint inhibitor (durvalumab) in bladder cancer that is locally advanced. If successful, this novel approach could ultimately lay the foundation for bladder preservation strategy with immunotherapy in this unique subset of bladder cancer patients who have extensive local disease without any signs of distant metastases. I also serve as a co-leader for the GU diseases group at the Penn State Cancer Institute and was recently appointed as a co-chair of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium’s GU Clinical Research Working Group. Serving in this capacity helps me facilitate the groundbreaking research conducted by my colleagues in the consortium.

Read More

March 1, 2018:

Investigator Spotlight

Nancy Chan, MD, medical oncologist, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New JerseyResearch interests: I am interested in discovering and developing new therapies for the treatment of breast and gynecological malignancies. I have witnessed various immunotherapies shrink tumors within weeks and help women live longer with their cancer with minimal side effects. I have also faced the frustration of lack of response and rare but life threatening side effects of immunotherapy. I hope that my research will contribute to how to identify responders, as well as how to improve and potentiate durable response. Our immune system is extremely intricate and sophisticated, we are still learning so much about its potentials. Our collaborations with my colleagues at Rutgers, the Big Ten, and pharmaceutical companies are driving progress in the field. The Big Ten breast cancer research consortium has developed innovative trials to explore the potential benefits of a variety of targeted therapies in triple negative, hormone receptor positive, and HER2 positive breast cancers.

Read More

Feb. 1, 2018:

Investigator Spotlight:

Attaya Suvannasankha, MD, Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center

School of Medicine: Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand; Residency: Einstein Medical Center Philadelphia; Fellowship: Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, NY

Research interests: Multiple myeloma is a rare and incurable blood cancer, but not all myeloma is the same. While the current treatments may work well initially, myeloma keeps recurring and eventually patients die from drug resistant myeloma and treatment side effects. Much work is needed to understand why myeloma cancer cells respond differently to common treatments. Currently, there is not a good way to predetermine the response of an individual’s myeloma to chemotherapy. Current treatments are therefore rather trial and error.

I believe that an individualized treatment for each patient will be more effective, less toxic, less expensive and can lead to a cure. In the lab, I am establishing a new way to grow and test each patient’s myeloma cells in mouse bones to select the right chemotherapy for them. In the clinic, I lead clinical trials that explore new drugs or drug combinations in myeloma. I am particularly interested in finding how to best use these medications in frail elderly patients in order to balance cancer control and quality of life issues.

Being a part of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium myeloma team allows me to work with the best and the brightest among the Big Ten Institutions to conduct high-impact, hypothesis-driven, highly translational, clinical trials in myeloma- a rare and incurable disease in need of novel treatments.

Little-known facts about Dr. Suvannasankha:

• When I first moved to the US for residency training, I was so nervous speaking English that I only ate at fast food restaurants so I could order food by numbers without needing to speak in sentences. Thanks to all the Philadelphians for letting me practice English on them.
• I was not at all athletic as a child. I’ve picked up running as a hobby and have completed a few marathons. Each marathon mile is dedicate to a patient, friend or family who has inspired me.
• I have a poor memory for people’s names but I can remember people’s stories.

Read More

Dec. 1, 2017:

Investigator Spotlight

Elizabeth C. Neil, MD, Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota Educational background: BS, Wayne State University School of Medicine: MD, University of Cincinnati: Residency in adult neurology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center: Fellowship in neuro-oncology

Research interests: I am a neuro-oncologist at the University of Minnesota. A career focus of mine is to make clinical trials available to my patient population, which includes those diagnosed with primary brain tumors or metastatic disease to the central nervous system. I partake in industry-sponsored, national consortium, and Big Ten Network coordinated clinical trials, as well as investigator initiated clinical trials by way of collaborating with pharmaceutical/ bio-engineering companies and especially, University researchers. Opening these trials at the University of Minnesota Medical Center – Fairview is made possible with institutional resources and the support of my neuro-oncology team colleagues.

Little-known facts about Dr. Neil:

• I played four years of college basketball on a Division I athletic scholarship.
• My husband and I forfeited our highly coveted tickets to Hamilton on Broadway; third row with the original cast, because on the morning of the show, we unexpectedly (yet warmly welcomed) the birth of our daughter.
• I am married to an architect and we passionately restored our first home in Cincinnati, a Queen Anne built in 1895 with plans to do the same to our current home, a 1910 American Four Square.

Read More

Nov. 1, 2017:

Investigator Spotlight

Dr. Zachary Morris is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Oncology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and is a member of the UW Carbone Cancer Center.

This story is adapted from an earlier version, originally published by UW Health

Teaching the Immune System to Fight Cancer

Vaccines against an infection work by training the immune system at the site of injection and then spreading those educated immune cells throughout the body.

UW Carbone Cancer Center researcher and Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium (Big Ten CRC) Head and Neck Clinical Trial Working Group member Zachary Morris, MD, PhD, thinks that same immunotherapy concept can be applied to fighting cancer, especially metastatic cancers where cells from the initial tumor have spread to other parts of the body. Morris is also working with Big Ten CRC to launch a Sarcoma Clinical Trial Working Group.

Read More

Oct. 1, 2017:

Investigator Spotlight

Hamid Band, MD, PhD, Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center

Educational background: M.D. Medical College, Srinagar,, Kashmir University, India; Ph.D. Immunology, All-India Insitute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Research interests: Our research focuses on two major topics, both geared to understand, and potentially target, the intracellular traffic of cell surface receptors coupled to activation of tyrosine kinase signaling: the CBL-family of ubiquitin ligases, which provides an essential mechanism of negative regulation of receptor and non-receptor tyrosine kinases through ubiquitin-dependent proteasomal and lysosomal degradation; and members of the EHD family of endocytic regulatory proteins, which control subcellular traffic of cell surface receptors involved in a variety of fundamental cellular processes. We use mouse genetic models, cell biology, biochemistry and molecular biology approaches to investigate the roles of these protein families in the context of epithelial (mammary and intestinal) and hematopoietic stem cell homeostasis, immune responses in cancer, and tumor progression and metastasis in breast cancer and myeloid leukemia. A newer interest in the laboratory is on cancer immunology, with a focus on enhancing the efficacy of CAR T-cell immunotherapy of solid tumors.

Little-known facts about Dr. Band: 

• As a child, I walked a mile and a quarter each way to attend middle school, rain or shine. Thank God, they gave us six weeks off in winter.
• In 1980/1981, I applied to Ph.D. programs at five U.S. universities and was rejected by all. About eight years later (three years after receiving my official Ph.D. degree from India), I accepted my first Ph.D. student and taught a course in immunology at one of those universities — Harvard.
• Except for Wheatfield’s Bakery in Omaha, I rarely buy foods without scanning the nutritional information on the package.

Read More

Aug. 2, 2017:

Investigator Spotlight

Barbara Pro, MD, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University

Educational background: MD, University La Sapienza in Rome Italy; Residency: Mount Sinai Hospital, New York

Research interests: Dr Pro’s research focus has been on the development of new therapies for the management of patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She has served as the PI on numerous clinical trials, including three trials that led to the approval of novel agents for the treatment of T-cell lymphomas. Dr. Pro is an internationally renowned clinician and researcher and her work has been published extensively.

Little-known facts about Dr. Pro: 

• When my father died from colon cancer at the age of 42 I decided to become an oncologist and help cure cancer.
• I love teaching and sharing my experience with our Fellows.
• I wish I’d studied English sooner! I went to medical school in Italy and had no idea I would eventually practice in the U.S.

Read More

June 2, 2017:

Investigator Spotlight

Dr. Ryan Alan Wilcox

Ryan Alan Wilcox, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of hematology, University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center 

Member of the Big Ten Cancer Research Consortium Lymphoid Malignancies Clinical Trial Working Group 

Interests: T-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas 

• Medical School or Training
  • Mayo Medical School, 2004
• Residency 
  • Mayo Clinic, Internal Medicine, MN, 2007
• Fellowship
  • Hematology/Oncology, Mayo Clinic, 2011
• Board Certification
  • Internal Medicine
  • Medical Oncology
  • Hematology 

Read More

May 15, 2017:

Jatin Rana, MD

Investigator Spotlight

Jatin Rana, MD

Educational Background: BS from University of Michigan, MS from Wayne State University, and MD from Wayne State University

Research Interests: My primary interests both clinically and investigational is in gastrointestinal and breast malignancies. As a young investigator I’m excited to offer treatment opportunities through clinical trials for my patients. I am also involved in developing quality improvement projects to provide the best oncology care for our patients.

Fun Facts: I enjoy cooking/grilling.

I enjoy hands-on projects including fixing cars and working in the yard.

I was born in England.

Read More