Dear Friend of the Englander Institute for Precision Medicine,
Welcome to our second quarterly external newsletter of 2023!
Thank you for signing up on our website to receive this newsletter, we hope you enjoy learning more about the important progress we’ve made towards our mission since the end of March.
We have some new faces on campus this summer! Last month we welcomed participants in the 2023 Summer Program that we administer with our friends from the Meyer Cancer Center. I’d like to thank all of our faculty mentors who give so generously of their time to make this program popular and such a great success every summer.
t’s been a remarkably productive quarter, with new awards to researchers and elections to professional societies, promotions, exciting events like our Bridge2AI-Voice Consortium meeting and Biomedical Engineering symposia, and research publications in leading journals.
Our important work is only possible because of the financial support we receive from foundations, government agencies, corporate partners, and the individual donors who make all of these discoveries and breakthroughs possible.
Thank you again for your interest in our work!
Sincerely,
Olivier Elemento, Ph.D.
EIPM Director
News Coverage & Awards
Congratulations to our colleagues Drs. Ana M. Molina (left) and Allyson J. Ocean on being named to Castle Connolly’s 2023 list of Exceptional Women In Oncology!
Our Scientific Director Dr. Massimo Cristofanilli was one of 16 National Foundation for Cancer Research-supported scientists to have their work featured as part of the world-renowned American Association for Cancer Research’s Annual Meeting this year!
Our Associate Director for Precision Immunology Dr. Laura Santambrogio was elected to The American Association of Immunologists Nominating Committee, which is dedicated to identifying and recommending outstanding AAI members as candidates for election to AAI leadership positions!
Dr. Jonathan Zippin earned a WCM 2023 Excellence in Medical Education Award! On a related note, Dr. Jeanyoung Kim, who works with Dr. Zippin as lead on the WCM dermatology precision medicine bio-banking effort, earned a 2023 CTSC Pilot Grant Award, with funding beginning July 1st.
Congratulations to Dr. Jones Nauseef (center, photo right) on his 2023 Department of Medicine Young Investigator Award to study, with WGS, localized prostate cancer from American men of African ancestry!
Dr. Steve Lipkin was interviewed for the article “The next big advance in cancer treatment could be a vaccine,” that appeared in The Washington Post, June 26th.
Our Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg participated in GU Oncology Now video interviews on the subject of “Imaging and Treatment Changes for nmCRPC,” on April 11th, and “Mutation Status as a Treatment Driver in Advanced Prostate Cancer,” also on April 11th.
Dr. Lisa A. Newman was interviewed for the article “Black, Asian women at highest risk for locoregional breast cancer recurrence,” which appeared in Healio on April 13th. Dr. Newman was also interviewed for the article, “African Ancestry Genetically Linked to Worse CRC Outcomes,” in Medscape on April 21st as a follow-up to a briefing she moderated at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023
Congratulations to the EIPM Molecular Aging Institute’s Clinical Director Dr. Pinkal Desai on her promotion to Associate Professor of Medicine! Dr. Desai also spoke with the Video Journal of Hematological Oncology on June 10th about the mutational complexity in patients with acute myeloid leukemia.
Dr. Ally Ocean was interviewed for the article, “When Certain Chemotherapy Drugs Are in Short Supply,” that appeared in Katie Couric Media on June 13th.
Events
The Bridge2AI-Voice Consortium, a program based on the NIH-funded study called Voice as a Biomarker of Health that is co-led by experts from the EIPM and the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa, held a unique, first-of-its-kind gathering of experts last month across industries to explore the impact voice can have on health care.
Clinical Director Dr. Cora Sternberg had six abstracts presented at ASCO 2023, and is first author on a seventh: “Final results from SAUL, a single-arm international real-world study of atezolizumab (atezo) in 1004 patients (pts) with pretreated locally advanced/metastatic urinary tract carcinoma (UTC),” abstract #408360. Dr. Cora Sternberg also presented “Final Results from SAUL, a Single-Arm International Real-World Study of Atezolizumab in Patients with Pretreated Locally Advanced/Metastatic UTC,” at ASCO and was covered by UroToday on June 6th.
We were very happy to co-host the “Biomedical Engineering Symposium: Tools to Transform,” on May 22-23 and sponsored by the EIPM, WCM Neurological Surgery, and the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell in Ithaca. EIPM speakers included Drs. Niroshana Anandasabapathy, Steven M. Lipkin, Shahin Rafii, Monica Guzman, and myself.
Dr. Allyson Ocean partnered with the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network on a visit to the New York State Capitol to lobby legislators to pass A1673/S1196 to expand access to biomarker testing in New York. On a related note, Dr. Ocean was interviewed by NY1 News on May 18 for the segment “Proposal would require insurance coverage for biomarker testing.”
Congratulations to all Weill Cornell Graduate School students in the Class of 2023, especially Josue Barnes, from the Physiology, Biophysics & Systems Biology Program who won the Student Diversity Award, and was mentored by Dr. Iman Hajirasouliha and myself.
Our Director for Liquid Biopsy Research Dr. Pashtoon Kasi delivered POET Virtual Molecular Rounds, “Integrating Liquid Biopsies (#ctDNA) Into Clinical Practice,” on June 26th.
Publications
“Avelumab First-Line Maintenance for Advanced Urothelial Carcinoma: Results From the JAVELIN Bladder 100 Trial After ≥2 Years of Follow-Up,” was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on April 18th by our Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg.
“Landscape of prostate-specific membrane antigen heterogeneity and regulation in AR-positive and AR-negative metastatic prostate cancer,” was published in Nature Cancer, by our former colleague Dr. Himisha Beltran along with Dr. Francesca Khani from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department, and an EIPM Member, and myself, on April 10th.
“Artificial Intelligence in Cancer Research and Precision Medicine,” was published in Cancer Discovery by current and former EIPM colleagues Drs. Bhavneet Binder, Coryandar Gilvary, Neel Madukar and myself on April 1st.
“A Phase II Single-arm Study of Palbociclib in Patients With HER2-positive Breast Cancer With Brain Metastases and Analysis of ctDNA in Patients With Active Brain Metastases,” was published in the April 2023 edition of Clinical Breast Cancer by our Scientific Director Dr. Massimo Cristofanilli.
“Interplay of Metabolome and Gut Microbiome in Individuals With Major Depressive Disorder vs Control Individuals,” was published in the April 19th edition of JAMA Psychiatry by Drs. Richa Batra and Jan Krumsiek.
“Metasurface-enhanced infrared spectroscopy in multiwell format for real-time assaying of live cells,” was published by Dr. Chengqi Xu and myself, with colleagues from Cornell’s School of Applied and Engineering Physics, and the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering, in Lab on a Chip, May 9th.
“Distinct cAMP signaling microdomains differentially regulate melanosomal pH and pigmentation,” was published by Dr. Jonathan H. Zippin in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, May 2nd. Dr. Zippin also published “The impact of cancer history on the prevalence of type IV hypersensitivity: A 9-year matched retrospective cohort study,” that appeared in The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology in May 2023.
“Genetic Risk Factors for End-Stage Hip Osteoarthritis Treated with Total Hip Arthroplasty: A Genome-Wide Association Study,” was published by Dr.Scott Kulm and myself, with researchers from the Hospital for Special Surgery, in The Journal of Arthroplasty on May 11th.
“A multimodal atlas of tumour metabolism reveals the architecture of gene–metabolite covariation. These results provide evidence that gene–metabolite covariation in cellularly heterogeneous tissue arises, in part, from both mechanistic interactions between genes and metabolites, and from remodelling of the bulk metabolome in specific immune microenvironments,” was published in Nature Metabolism by Dr. Jan Krumsiek and colleagues, June 19th.
“Emerging evidence for adapting radiotherapy to immunotherapy,” was published by our EIPM colleague Dr. Lorenzo Galluzzi with Dr. Silvia C. Formenti from the Meyer Cancer Center in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology on June 6th.
The Letter, “How I read an article that uses machine learning methods,” was published by myself and colleagues in Blood Advances on June 5th.
Dr. Bishoy Faltas and colleagues published the Research Letter, “A Pilot Study on Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy after Radical or Partial Cystectomy with Pelvic Lymph Node Dissection for High-risk Muscle-invasive Bladder Cancer,” in European Urology on June 21st.
“Updates on radiotherapy-immunotherapy combinations: Proceedings of 6th annual ImmunoRad conference. Focal radiation therapy (RT) has attracted considerable attention as a combinatorial partner for immunotherapy (IT), largely reflecting a well-defined, predictable safety profile and at least some potential for immunostimulation,” was published in OncoImmunology by our Associate Director for Precision ImmunologyDr. Laura Santambrogio and Dr. Lorenzo Galluzzi on June 21st.
“SARS-CoV-2 hijacks p38β/MAPK11 to promote virus replication. This study reveals a unique proviral function for p38β and supports exploring p38β inhibitor development as a strategy toward creating a new class of COVID-19 therapies,” was published in mBio by Dr. Tomer M. Yaron and colleagues on June 22nd.