Kai Ding was awarded his Ph.D. after defending his dissertation “Multi-omics profiling of breast cancer metastases to identify drivers and mechanisms of endocrine resistance for precision medicine”
Congratulations to Adrian and Steffi who were invited to attend the 2022 Pitt Faculty Honors Convocation Ceremony and received medals recognizing their distinguished accomplishments. Adrian received his medal for his position as the Pittsburgh Foundation Endowed Chair in Precision Medicine. Steffi received her medal for her position as the Shear Family Endowed Chair in Breast Cancer Research.
Ashuvinee Elangovan, Ph.D. successfully convinced her committee that her project entitled “Loss of E-Cadherin Activates a Targetable IF1R Pathway in Invasive Lobular Breast Cancer” is worthy of a Philosophiae Doctor! Cheers to Ashu!!
Congrats to Vaciry Li for the feature in the Pitt School of Medicine Newsletter!
Congrats to Osama Shah for receiving the “Peggy Ogden Women’s Health Fellowship award” from Foundation of Women Wellness (FWW) for his research project “Comprehensive Molecular Characterization of Cell Line Models of Invasive Lobular Breast Cancer”. FWW’s Fellowship Awards recognize and support emerging physician-scientists working in women’s health disciplines.
Invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC) is a poorly studied subtype of breast cancer. ILC remains understudied in part due to lack of appropriate laboratory models in which to study this disease. Osama’s project is focused on performing molecular characterization of reported ILC cell lines and investigating which of these cell lines recapitulate the molecular landscape of human ILC disease towards identifying suitable models for ILC research.
Osama thanks Dr. Lee, Dr. Oesterriech, and Dr. Xavier for their outstanding mentorship.
Congrats to Kai Ding for his Best Presentation Award and to Ashuvinee Elangovan and Dr. Daniel Brown for Poster Awards. 300 attendees came together virtually for the 4th Annual Great Lakes Breast Cancer Symposium (GLBCS) October 25-26. 2021.
Congratulations to Ashuvinee Elangovan on winning 2nd place for her poster “Loss of E-cadherin Induced IGF1R Activation as a Targetable Pathway for Invasive Lobular Breast Carcinoma” at the 33rd Annual UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Scientific Retreat held on October 12th, at the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum. Several lab members also presented their posters, including Neil Carleton, Kai Ding, Nandini Doshi, Olivia McGinn, Susrutha Puthanmadhom, Laura Savariau, Osama Shah, & Megan Yates.
Postdoctoral Fellow
This training program is designed to recruit postdoctoral fellows from around the country to conduct cutting edge research at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center. For her project, Olivia will be investigating why invasive lobular breast carcinoma (ILC) displays a unique pattern of metastasis relative to the more common form of breast cancer, invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). Whereas both ILC and IDC metastasize to the bone, liver, and lungs, ILC displays an increased propensity to metastasize to the GI tract and reproductive organs. To study this, she is investigating the contribution of mesothelial cells in dictating ILC metastasis. Mesothelial cells are non-cancerous cells that line all organs of the body and are highly enriched in the abdominal cavity where ILC tumors metastasize to. Her goal is to identify specific mechanisms that mediate metastasis to these unique sites so that therapies can be designed to prevent it.
Congrats to Neil Carleton on his excellent score on his F30 award application, which is titled, “Promotion of ER+ Breast Cancer Progression in the Elderly.”
Neil will study the intersection of aging and breast cancer: ER+ breast cancer incidence correlates strongly with aging, rising to a peak incidence in women aged 70 years or older (elderly). Owing in large part to the differences in physiologic estrogen signaling and the chronic inflammatory state that develops as people age, ER+ breast cancer that develops in the elderly population exhibits distinct clinical and biologically behavior from ER+ breast cancer in younger cohorts. Intrinsic epigenomic and transcriptomic as well as changes to local breast microenvironment all contribute to a unique landscape for tumor pathogenesis in aged individuals. The interplay and disease-causing roles of these factors requires further investigation.
Neil thanks Dr. Lee, Dr. Oesterreich, and Dr. Xavier for their excellent mentorship – this is the lab’s fourth (!) F30 award received for MD/PhD students!
The Lee/Oesterreich lab recently acquired the “Pitt Green Lab” designation, symbolizing our efforts and commitment to increase sustainable lab practices as outlined in the “Pitt Sustainability” plan.