Dear Members of the Englander Institute,
Thank you all so much for another very successful and productive month!
I hope you enjoy reading about May’s accomplishments, that include staff promotions, elections to professional committees, news coverage of our work, information about abstracts at ASCO 2023, recaps of meetings, and impressive publications by a range of our EIPM colleagues–including four new publications by Dr. Lorenzo Galluzzi!
Our friends at the Meyer Cancer Center have created an open-ended scientific photo contest to help build a repository of scientific images that demonstrate the beauty of research and discovery. Click here to learn more about the contest and submit your image before the June 20th deadline!
Thanks to everyone who participated in our recent “Biomedical Engineering Symposium: Tools to Transform,” event sponsored by the EIPM, WCM Neurological Surgery, and the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell in Ithaca.
Calling all Dads: The WCM External Affairs department is putting together a slideshow animation for Father’s Day (June 18) and invites male faculty members to submit images with their children (the kids will be featured on WCM social media). EA is also inviting physicians or scientists to submit images with their dad or any special father figure in their lives. The deadline to submit images is June 9th, they can be emailed to Stacey Kratz (stk4005) or Theresa Juva-Brown (thj4004).
Thank you again for your hard work and dedication to our mission.
Sincerely,
Olivier Elemento, Ph.D.
News Coverage & Awards
Please join us in congratulating our Associate Director for Precision Immunology Dr. Laura Santambrogio on her recent election 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!
Congratulations to the EIPM Molecular Aging Institute’s Clinical Director Dr. Pinkal Desai on her promotion last month to Associate Professor of Medicine!
Our colleague Dr. Ashish Saxena was interviewed for the article “Analyzing Outcomes of Immune Checkpoint Blockade Plus Chemo in SCLC,” that appeared in Targeted Oncology on May 6th.
Dr. Kristy A. Brown was interviewed for the article “Obesity may increase risk for breast cancer among BRCA mutation carriers,” that appeared in Healio on May 11th.
Dr. Manish Shah was interviewed for the article “Manish Shah, MD, on ASCO’s New Guideline on Advanced Gastroesophageal Cancer,” that appeared in MedPage Today on May 11th.
Events
Clinical Director Dr. Cora Sternberg has six abstracts at ASCO 2023 later this month, 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.
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.
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. Learn more about the symposium!
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.
Publications
“The Immunogenomic Landscape of Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer,” was published by our former colleague Dr. Misha Beltran, Pathology and Laboratory Medicine colleagues Drs. Ahmed Elsaeed, Andrea Sboner, and Juan Miguel Mosquera, and EIPM Members Bhavneet Binder, Michael Sigouros, Manik Upper, Rohan Bareja, Ken Wha. Eng, and myself, in Clinical Cancer Research on May 24th.
“Tucatinib plus trastuzumab for chemotherapy-refractory, HER2-positive, RAS wild-type unresectable or metastatic colorectal cancer (MOUNTAINEER): a multicentre, open-label, phase 2 study,” was published by our Director for Liquid Biopsy Research Dr. Pashtoon Kasi and colleagues in The Lancet Oncology, May 2023.
“Radiation therapy improves CAR T cell activity in acute lymphoblastic leukemia,” by EIPM colleagues Drs. Lorenzo Galluzzi and Monica Guzman in Cell Death and Disease, May 4th. Dr. Galluzzi published “Immunologically relevant effects of radiation therapy on the tumor microenvironment,” in Essays in Biochemistry on May 18th. And Dr. Galluzzi published “Calreticulin exposure orchestrates innate immunosurveillance,” in Cancer Cell on May 18th. Finally, Dr. Galluzzi published “Ca2+ signaling and cell death,” in the July 2023 edition of Cell Calcium.
“The Interplay between Mutagenesis and Extrachromosomal DNA Shapes Urothelial Cancer Evolution,” was published by Pathology and Laboratory Medicine’s Drs. Giorgio Inghirami andJuan Miguel Mosquera; and EIPM’s Michael Sigouros, Jyothi Manohar, Jenna Moyer and Drs. David Wilkes, Scott T. Tagawa, David M. Nanus, Jones T. Nauseef, Clinical Director Cora N. Sternberg, Ana M. Molina, Bishoy M. Faltas and myself in bioRxiv on May 7th.
“Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 4/6 Inhibitors Beyond Progression in Metastatic Breast Cancer: A Retrospective Real-World Biomarker Analysis,” was published by our Scientific Director Dr. Massimo Cristofanilli in JCO Precision Oncology, May 4th.
“Multicenter phase 2 study of oral azacitidine (CC-486) plus CHOP as initial treatment for PTCL,” was published by our Pathology and Laboratory Medicine colleagues Drs. Andrea Sboner and Giorgio Inghirami, and EIPM colleagues Michael Sigouros, Drs. Jenny Xiang, Director of Innovation Alicia Alonso, John P. Leonard, Peter Martin, and myself in Blood, May 4th.
“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.
“ICAM-1-suPAR-CD11b Axis Is a Novel Therapeutic Target for Metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer,” was published by our Scientific Director Dr. Massimo Cristofanilli in Cancers on May 12th.
“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.
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