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.
We are so happy to welcome new members of the larger Lee/Oesterreich lab family into the world. Congratulations Sayali and family, and Olivia and family!
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.
This study was led by former graduate student Vaciry Li with great efforts from many intra- and inter-group collaborations. Congratulations to all!
In this study, we showed that context and allele-dependent transcriptome and cistrome reprogramming in ESR1 mutation cell models, which elicit diverse metastatic phenotypes related to cell-cell adhesion, cell-ECM adhesion and migration driven by increased desmosome/gap junctions, dampened TIMP3-MMP axis and Wnt pathway. Importantly, some of these pathways can pharmacologically targeted and reveals novel therapeutic strategies.
Our paper is out on ESTROGEN RECEPTOR MUTATIONS – so much more than endocrine resistance. Multiple roles in #metastaticbreastcancer Great work by @ZheqiL @UPMCHillmanCC @MageeWomens now postdoc @DanaFarber @Adrianvlee https://t.co/X1baEXelai pic.twitter.com/nI7VNbrzau
— Dr. Steffi Oesterreich (@oesterreichs) January 27, 2022
Led by PhD student Neil Carleton and senior authors Adrian Lee, Priscilla McAuliffe, and Steffi Oesterreich, we review key considerations for “right-sizing” therapy options for older women with ER+ breast cancer. With contributions from radiation, pathology, surgical oncology, radiation oncology, and medical oncology from the UPMC / Magee Women’s Hospital breast cancer group, this collaborative effort touches on optimizing quality of life along with new translational studies that may impact future treatment of these patients.
Check it out at: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhl/article/PIIS2666-7568(21)00280-4/fulltext.
Members of the lab attended the opening dinner of the Magee-Womens Summit, a 3-day conference dedicated to womens health. They also got to meet Jerome Bettis and the owners of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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.
