DEMYSTIFYING PANCREATIC CANCER THERAPIES
Increasing evidence finds that a pancreatic tumor’s microenvironment helps malignant cells survive chemotherapy and immunotherapy; and that, ironically, treatment-spurred changes to the microenvironment promote development of drug resistance. This project aims to discover exactly how that process occurs—creating knowledge that would underpin new, highly effective pancreatic cancer treatment strategies.
Increasing evidence finds that a pancreatic tumor’s microenvironment helps malignant cells survive chemotherapy and immunotherapy; and that, ironically, treatment-spurred changes to the microenvironment promote development of drug resistance. This project aims to discover exactly how that process occurs—creating knowledge that would underpin new, highly effective pancreatic cancer treatment strategies.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
- The project’s central hypothesis is that—to overcome the profoundly immunosuppressive microenvironment at work in pancreatic cancer tumors—it is necessary to develop therapeutic strategies targeting both the malignant cancer cells and the tissues that form their supportive environment.
- It will test three therapeutic regimens delivered in the neoadjuvant setting—that is, drug combinations administered before a tumor is surgically removed—using a clinical trial design the research team previously demonstrated to be safe for use shortly before patients’ tumor-removal surgery.
- The team will use the therapies in varied combinations designed to attack different aspects of pancreatic cancer survival.
- Beyond carefully gauging the treatments’ clinical effectiveness, the researchers will expeditiously complete a multifaceted analysis of the surgically removed tumor and its microenvironment.
- This analysis will use an array of cutting-edge methods to help identify the mechanisms by which the cancer cells develop resistance to treatment, and ensure that future trials routinely use such advanced technologies.
MEET THE TEAM
The Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies Project utilizes capacities provided by five leading clinical and research centers. This collaboration draws on cutting-edge expertise and technologies in areas ranging from deep genomic sequencing and liquid biopsy analysis to three-dimensional reconstruction and spatial transcriptomics. It also creates synergies among experts in areas ranging from cancer genomics and evolution to translational tumor immunology to computation biology.
We invite you to learn about the institutions and individual investigators driving this important research and development project.
Alex K. Shalek, PhD
Anirban Maitra, MBBS
Ashley Kiemen, PhD
Denis Wirtz, PhD
Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD
Elana Fertig, PhD
Eric Christenson, MD
Jin He, MD, PhD
Jiping Wang, MD, PhD
Kevin Soares, MD
Kimal Rajapakshe, PhD
Laura D. Wood, MD, PhD
Lei Zheng, MD, PhD
Linghua Wang, MD, PhD
Luciane T. Kagohara, PhD
Pamela Constantinou Papadopoulos, PhD
Paola A. Guerrero, PhD
Pei-Hsun Wu
Rachel Karchin, PhD
Stephanie Dougan, PhD
Won Jin Ho, MD
Alex K. Shalek, PhD
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, Eradicating Minimal Residual Disease in AML<, Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML, The Data Science Hub
Alex K. Shalek, PhD (pronouns: he/him/his) is the Director of the Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES), the Director of the Health Innovation Hub at MIT, and the J. W. Kieckhefer Professor in IMES and the Department of Chemistry at MIT, as well as an Extramural Member of its Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. He is also an Institute Member of the Broad Institute, a Member of the Ragon Institute, an Assistant in Immunology at MGB, and an Instructor in Health Sciences & Technology at HMS. Dr. Shalek received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in chemical physics under the guidance of Hongkun Park, and performed postdoctoral training under Hongkun Park and Aviv Regev (Broad/MIT). His lab’s research is directed towards the development and application of new approaches to elucidate cellular and molecular features that inform tissue-level function and dysfunction across the spectrum of human health and disease. Dr. Shalek and his work have received numerous honors including a NIH New Innovator Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, a Searle Scholar Award, a Pew-Stewart Scholar Award, the Avant-Garde (DP1 Pioneer) Award from the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry, as well as the 2019-2020 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award at MIT and the 2020 HMS Young Mentor Award.
Anirban Maitra, MBBS
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Maitra is a Professor of Translational Molecular Pathology and Scientific Director of the Sheikh Ahmed Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. The arc of his career over the past two decades has been defined by studying the genetics and biology of pancreatic cancer and its precursor lesions, with a particular focus on early detection and cancer interception.He is deeply committed to improving the lives of patients afflicted with this devastating disease. He is a strong believer in the power team science and mentoring.
Ashley Kiemen, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Ashley Kiemen, PhD is an Assistant Professor of pathology and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan in 2016, a master’s degree in philosophy from the London School of Economics in 2017, and conducted her PhD studies in chemical & biomolecular engineering under the guidance of Profs. Denis Wirtz and PeiHsun Wu at the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, completing her degree in 2021. Prof. Kiemen’s work focuses on development of novel deep learning and image processing approaches for improving our ability to map the microanatomy, immune profile, and genetic heterogeneity of large tissues. She is particularly interested in study of the development and invasion patterns of pancreatic cancer.
Denis Wirtz, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Through research at the interface of physics, biology, and oncology, Wirtz has made seminal contributions in cancer cell migration, cytoskeleton biophysics, and the nascent field of mechanobiology. He has developed quantitative methods, including particle-tracking microrheology, which are widely used both in academia and industry. He has also pioneered research in cell migration in 3D settings, bacterial cell division, and high-throughput cell phenotyping. Recently, he has developed CODA, a, AI-based method to image large volumes of tissues and tumors in 3D dimensions. Denis Wirtz has founded the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoaBioTechnology (INBT). He is the Director of the NCI-funded postdoctoral training program in nanotechnology for oncology and. Director of the NCI-funded Physical Sciences-Oncology Center (PS-OC) and the Johns Hopkins Cellular Cancer Biology Imaging Cancer (CCBIR) Center. Wirtz is author and co-author of 250 peer-reviewed articles published in journals such as Science, Nature, Cell, Nature Reviews Cancer, and Nature Cell Biology. His work at Hopkins has been cited >31,000 times and has an h-index of 94. Wirtz received the NSF Career award in 1995, was named Theophilius H. Smoot Professor of Engineering and Science in 2009, fellow of the Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2007, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2009, and fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2010, and member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. Wirtz received a physics engineering degree from the Free University of Brussels in 1988, and MSc and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 1993. Wirtz has been the Vice Provost for Research of Johns Hopkins University since 2014.
Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Eileen M. O’Reilly holds the Winthrop Rockefeller Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). She serves as the Section Head for Hepatopancreaticobiliary/ Neuroendocrine Cancers, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, Co-Director for Medical Initiatives at the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer and is an Attending Physician and Member at MSK and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. O’Reilly has pancreatic cancer as the major focus of her research and clinical activities. Research directions include integration of molecular and genetic-based therapies for pancreas cancer along with development of adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapies and identification of biomarkers for therapy selection. Dr. O’Reilly is the Principal Investigator of multiple phase I, II, III trials in pancreas cancer and is the Co-PI of the MSK Pancreas Cancer SPORE (Specialized Program of Oncology Research Excellence). Dr. O’Reilly’s is Chair of the Human Research Protection Program/IRB at MSK. She serves as the Co-Chair of the NCI Alliance Co-Operative Group Gastrointestinal Cancers Committee and is a member of the NCI Gastrointestinal Cancers Steering Committee (GISC), Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Guidelines Committee and the Board of the National Pancreas Foundation.
Elana Fertig, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab(s): The Data Science Hub, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Fertig directs a hybrid computational and experimental lab in the systems biology of cancer and therapeutic response to develop a new predictive medicine paradigm in cancer. Her wet lab develops time course models of therapeutic resistance and performs single cell technology development. Her computational methods blend mathematical modeling and artificial intelligence to determine the biomarkers and molecular mechanisms of therapeutic resistance from multi-platform genomics data. These techniques have broad applicability to the analysis of clinical biospecimens, developmental biology, and neuroscience. Dr. Fertig is a Professor of Oncology and Director of the Division / Associate Cancer Center Director in Quantitative Sciences, co-Director of the Convergence Institute, and co-Director of the Single-Cell Training and Analysis Center. She has secondary appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics and Statistics, affiliations in the Institute of Computational Medicine, Center for Computational Genomics, Machine Learning, Mathematical Institute for Data Science, and the Center for Computational Biology and is a Daniel Nathans Scientific Innovator. Prior to entering the field of computational cancer biology, Dr Fertig was a NASA research fellow in numerical weather prediction.
Eric Christenson, MD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Eric Christenson, MD, is an early career medical oncologist at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Christenson received his bachelor’s degree from Villanova University and his MD from Drexel University College of Medicine. Upon graduation, Dr. Christenson performed residency training in the Osler Internal Medicine program at Johns Hopkins. He stayed on at Johns Hopkins for Medical Oncology Fellowship training and was a chief fellow.
Dr. Christenson’s work is focused on translating basic science discoveries and clinical observations into therapeutic strategies to improve patient outcomes in pancreatic and colorectal cancer. Dr. Christenson is passionate about the conduct of trials with strong clinical and correlative endpoints. Evaluation of the clinical and correlative data from these trials will then be used to generate additional hypotheses that will be tested in preclinical models and ultimately brought back to the clinic.
Dr. Christenson and has work have received numerous awards including an ASCO Young Investigator Award, a MacMillan Pathway to Independence program awardee, MD Anderson GI spore career enhancement program awardee, and receipt of Swim Across America funding.
Jin He, MD, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Jin He, MD, PhD is a surgical oncologist specializing in treating cancers and diseases of the liver, gallbladder, biliary system, pancreas, and stomach. He performs open and minimally invasive liver and pancreas surgery, including the Whipple procedure.
He is actively involved in clinical research to improve patient outcomes. His research focuses on personalized treatment through stratifying pancreatic tumors on their molecular features. He holds several patents in anti-cancer vascular targeting agents and has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and lectured internationally. He serves on several national committees, including the NCCN panel on neuroendocrine tumors. He is the editorial board member of several surgical journals, including Annals of Surgical Oncology and Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery.
Jiping Wang, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Jiping Wang, MD, PhD is a surgical oncologist at Dana Farber and Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, an Associate Professor of Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wang obtained his PhD from University of Pittsburgh in Biostatistics and worked at National Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) as a statistician for 5 years. Dr. Wang’s main clinical focus is surgical treatment for hepatobiliary, pancreas and gastric cancer with minimally invasive approach. Dr. Wang has been involved in cancer research for more than twenty years. He was also a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) program committee and a member of the Oncology Surgery (SSO) research committee. Currently, he serves as Associate Director of Hepatobiliary Cancer Program, and Research Director at the Division of Surgical Oncology , Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Kevin Soares, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Kevin C. Soares MD is a physician-scientist, hepatopancreatobiliary surgical oncologist and Assistant Attending Surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical School. He attended the University of Massachusetts Medical School and completed general surgery residency at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He then completed a dual fellowship in hepatopancreaticobiliary surgery as well as complex general surgical oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His clinical practice focuses on diseases of the liver, pancreas, bile duct and gallbladder and implementing minimally invasive techniques in the management of these pathologies. Dr. Soares’s research focuses on combinatorial cancer immunotherapies in pancreas, liver, and bile duct cancers in order to better understand mechanisms abrogating responses to cancer immunotherapy in hepatobiliary malignancies.
Kimal Rajapakshe, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab:Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, The Data Science Hub
Kimal Rajapakshe is a Computational Scientist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center with a decade of experience in analyzing and integration of multi-omics data from both solid tumor and liquid biopsy. He specialized in analyzing RNA-Seq(bulk and single cell), ATAC-Seq(bulk and single cell), genomic sequencing(WES & targeted), ChIP-Seq, Methylation array, proteomics and metabolomics data.
Laura D. Wood, MD, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab:Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Laura D. Wood, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor and Director of the Division of Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology in the Department of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Wood received her BS in Biology from the College of William & Mary, graduating Summa Cum Laude with membership in Phi Beta Kappa. She then went on to earn both her MD and PhD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with membership in Alpha Omega Alpha. She completed her PhD research in the laboratory of Dr. Bert Vogelstein, where she led the first whole exome sequencing studies in human cancers. Dr. Wood then went on to complete residency in Anatomic Pathology (serving as Chief Resident in her final year) and fellowship in Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Now, she leads her own translational research laboratory focused on molecular characterization of pancreatic neoplasms. Her laboratory leverages next generation sequencing to characterize genetic heterogeneity and clonal evolution in precancerous pancreatic lesions. In addition, her group employs three-dimensional organoid culture models to interrogate the molecular drivers of pancreatic cancer invasion, and they are developing tools to transform human pancreatic pathology from two to three dimensions. In addition to her research program, Dr. Wood signs out clinical specimens on the Gastrointestinal Pathology service.
Lei Zheng, MD, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Lei Zheng, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Oncology and Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the Cancer Center and the Department of Oncology’s Assistant Director for Translational Research and Associate Cancer Center Director for Precision Medicine. He co-leads the precision medicine research and practice at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins and Department of Oncology. He is Director for a new Multidisciplinary Gastrointestinal Cancer Laboratories Program at the Johns Hopkins Cancer Center. He is also Director of the Pancreatic Cancer Precision Medicine Center of Excellence at Johns Hopkins. His clinical work is focused on multidisciplinary management for pancreatic cancer, bile duct cancer, colorectal cancer liver metastases, and gastric cancer. He is affiliated with the Tumor Immunology Program as a laboratory investigator. His primary laboratory research focus is on the identification of new targets and strategy for pancreatic cancer immunotherapies by dissecting tumor microenvironment of pancreatic cancer. He is considered to be one of world’s leading pancreatic cancer oncologists and researchers and one of leading experts in preclinical and clinical development of cancer immunotherapy. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Pancreatic Cancer. In 2021, he was elected into the American Society of Clinical Investigation. He served or is serving as a Councilor for Pancreatic Disorders (PAN) section of the American Gastroenterological Association Institute Council, a Member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Grant Selection Committee and Education Committee, and a Member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Program Committee. He is also chairing the China Regional Advisory Group for the AACR International Affair Committee.
Linghua Wang, MD, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer , Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, and The Data Science Hub
Dr. Wang is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Genomic Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Wang received her MD in Medicine and her PhD in Cancer Genomics and completed her postdoctoral training at Human Genome Sequencing Center, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, at Baylor College of Medicine. She was recruited to MD Anderson in 2017 and set up the Computational Biology Laboratory. Dr. Wang has significant expertise in computational biology, cancer immunogenomics, single-cell and spatial multiomics. Over the past few years, she has built a leading research program in cancer immunogenomics at MD Anderson and developed a collaborative, team-based approach to tackle cancer research. Her group has a vast experience in unraveling the heterogeneity and evolution of the complex tumor-immune ecosystems using the cutting-edge single-cell and spatial sequencing technologies, coupled with the state-of-the-art computation and modeling. Dr. Wang is the principal investigator of the CPRIT Individual Investigator Research Award and she serves as a co-Investigator for several peer-reviewed grants from NIH/NCI and U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Wang is also the recipient of the Sabin Fellow Award, two SPORE Career Enhancement Program Awards and three Institutional Research Grant Awards. She serves as the Bioinformatics Lead and project co-Leader for two MD Anderson Cancer Moon Shot Projects and she also leads/co-leads several additional single-cell studies. When she was at Baylor, Dr. Wang also contributed significantly to the NHGRI rare cancer projects, the NCI Exceptional Responder Initiative, TCGA and pan-cancer projects. Dr. Wang is a productive investigator and she has published 32 first- or senior-authored papers over the past few years. Among them, 23 were published in the top-tier or other high-impact journals. As site Lead of Data Science for the pancreatic and ovarian cancer programs funded by Break Through Cancer, Dr. Wang is extremely enthusiastic to collaborate with world-renowned leaders, talented data scientists, and the multidisciplinary research teams across five participating institutions to develop effective data science strategies to better understand, detect, and treat the most lethal cancers.
Luciane T. Kagohara, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab(s): Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, The Data Science Hub
Dr. Luciane Kagohara is a molecular and computational biologist hybrid. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from Universidade Estadual Paulista (Botucatu, Brazil) and her Ph.D. from the A.C. Camargo Cancer Center (Sao Paulo, Brazil) at the Department of Pathology. Earlier in her carrier, she focused on the identification of epigenetic and genetic cancer biomarkers. During her postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, she pursued training in bioinformatics and developed the expertise to perform combined experimental and computational research on epigenetic regulation of gene expression in acquired resistance. As a molecular biologist, she has extensive experience in experimental molecular biology and aptitude to design, optimize and execute a wide range of approaches, including single-cell, spatial transcriptomics, ATAC-seq, RNA-seq, among other molecular biology techniques. As a computational biologist, Dr. Kagohara can perform integrated analysis of genetic and epigenetic high-throughput data generated with different platforms. Her unique background is suitable for her research program which applies state-of-the-art technologies, like single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, to investigate mechanisms of resistance to different immuno-, chemo- and targeted therapies. Using single-cell and spatial technologies experimental and computational approaches to study clinical trial samples, Dr. Kagohara expects to discover molecular mechanisms and cellular interaction components of therapeutic resistance in cancers.
Pamela Constantinou Papadopoulos, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Pamela Papadopoulos is an Associate Director, Research Planning and Development in the Sheikh Ahmed Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research and the Moon Shots Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Papadopoulos received her B.A. in Chemistry from Vassar College and Ph.D. in Chemistry from New York University. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Bioengineering and was an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of BioSciences at Rice University. At MD Anderson, Dr. Papadopoulos is involved in several large, programmatic grants and initiatives. She applies her scientific background to provide scientific and administrative oversight to multi-PI and multidisciplinary programs.
Paola A. Guerrero, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Guerrero is Research Group Leader at the Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She leads a liquid biopsy research/genomics group under the guidance of Dr. Anirban Maitra. She has a PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Texas A&M University and postdoctoral training from Baylor College of Medicine and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Her lab conducts innovative translational research on patient-derived models and biospecimens to study cell intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms of PDAC tumorigenesis. Some of her current work focuses on using limited biopsies from human primary and metastatic PDAC paired to scRNAseq. Her lab demonstrated that these specimens were able to capture all previously reported repertoire of cell types in surgical resections, including the tumor-stromal heterogeneity inherent to this disease, and revealed putative mechanisms for immune evasion within the tumor microenvironment. Her lab is also evaluating the prognostic and predictive role of cargo coding-RNA from extracellular vesicles in patients with colorectal cancer, with the idea of expanding these studies to other cancer types such as PDAC.
Pei-Hsun Wu
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Pei-Hsun Wu, is an Associate Research Professor at the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Dr. Wu received his bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan University and his PhD from University of Florida in Chemical Engineering. His lab’s research is focused the development of high throughput image-based single cell analysis methods to study complex biological systems and characterize the pathobiological process of diseases. I have a broad background in biophysics and engineering, with specific training and expertise in cell mechanics, quantitative imaging analysis, molecular biology, pathology, bioinformatics, cancer biology, and instrument development.
Rachel Karchin, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, The Data Science Hub
Rachel Karchin, PhD is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopins University and is a core member of the Institute for Computational Medicine. She holds joint appointments in the Departments of Oncology and Computer Science, and is a member of the Cancer Biology Program and of the Multidisciplinary Pancreatic Cyst Team, both within the Kimmel Cancer Center. Since 2007, she has been an affiliate member for the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Karchin co-led The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) PanCan Atlas Essential Genes and Drivers Analysis Working Group (2017-2018). She received a BS in Computer Engineering (1998) and MS (2000) and PhD (2003) in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and completed her postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco in the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences. Her lab develops algorithms and software to analyze genomic data and interpret its impact on cancer, the immune system and tumor evolution. Karchin was the Whiting School of Engineering’s William R. Brody Faculty Scholar from 2013-2019. She was inducted as a Fellow in the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers in 2017, received the AACR Team Science Award in 2020 (TCGA) and was appointed a Distinguished Graduate Alumnus of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at University of California, Santa Cruz in 2021.
Stephanie Dougan, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Won Jin Ho, MD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Won Jin Ho is a gastrointestinal oncologist at Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins who focuses on cancer immunology and tumor microenvironment research of pancreatic and hepatobiliary cancers. Dr. Ho received his B.S. and M.S. in Bioengineering from UCLA, and his medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine. Dr. Ho then completed a research track internal medicine residency as NIH F32 postdoctoral fellow at Case Western Reserve University and subsequently completed his medical oncology fellowship as an AACR Immunology Research Fellow at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Ho currently co-leads the efforts in the gastrointestinal cancer research group to employ emerging high-parameter tools to empower biomarker discovery and development. Dr. Ho’s lab focuses on developing novel methodologies based on mass cytometry to determine the composition, functional states, as well as the spatial coordination of the cell types within the tumor microenvironment. Dr. Ho’s lab is also actively engaged in studies that focus on establishing novel therapeutic targets and strategies against cancer using preclinical models.
MEET THE TEAM
The Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies Project utilizes capacities provided by five leading clinical and research centers. This collaboration draws on cutting-edge expertise and technologies in areas ranging from deep genomic sequencing and liquid biopsy analysis to three-dimensional reconstruction and spatial transcriptomics. It also creates synergies among experts in areas ranging from cancer genomics and evolution to translational tumor immunology to computation biology.
We invite you to learn about the institutions and individual investigators driving this important research and development project.
View Team
Alex K. Shalek, PhD
Anirban Maitra, MBBS
Ashley Kiemen, PhD
Denis Wirtz, PhD
Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD
Elana Fertig, PhD
Eric Christenson, MD
Jin He, MD, PhD
Jiping Wang, MD, PhD
Kevin Soares, MD
Kimal Rajapakshe, PhD
Laura D. Wood, MD, PhD
Lei Zheng, MD, PhD
Linghua Wang, MD, PhD
Luciane T. Kagohara, PhD
Pamela Constantinou Papadopoulos, PhD
Paola A. Guerrero, PhD
Pei-Hsun Wu
Rachel Karchin, PhD
Stephanie Dougan, PhD
Won Jin Ho, MD
Alex K. Shalek, PhD
MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, Eradicating Minimal Residual Disease in AML<, Targeting Clonal Hematopoiesis to Prevent AML, The Data Science Hub
Alex K. Shalek, PhD (pronouns: he/him/his) is the Director of the Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES), the Director of the Health Innovation Hub at MIT, and the J. W. Kieckhefer Professor in IMES and the Department of Chemistry at MIT, as well as an Extramural Member of its Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. He is also an Institute Member of the Broad Institute, a Member of the Ragon Institute, an Assistant in Immunology at MGB, and an Instructor in Health Sciences & Technology at HMS. Dr. Shalek received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Columbia University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in chemical physics under the guidance of Hongkun Park, and performed postdoctoral training under Hongkun Park and Aviv Regev (Broad/MIT). His lab’s research is directed towards the development and application of new approaches to elucidate cellular and molecular features that inform tissue-level function and dysfunction across the spectrum of human health and disease. Dr. Shalek and his work have received numerous honors including a NIH New Innovator Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, a Searle Scholar Award, a Pew-Stewart Scholar Award, the Avant-Garde (DP1 Pioneer) Award from the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry, as well as the 2019-2020 Harold E. Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award at MIT and the 2020 HMS Young Mentor Award.
Anirban Maitra, MBBS
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Maitra is a Professor of Translational Molecular Pathology and Scientific Director of the Sheikh Ahmed Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. The arc of his career over the past two decades has been defined by studying the genetics and biology of pancreatic cancer and its precursor lesions, with a particular focus on early detection and cancer interception.He is deeply committed to improving the lives of patients afflicted with this devastating disease. He is a strong believer in the power team science and mentoring.
Ashley Kiemen, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Ashley Kiemen, PhD is an Assistant Professor of pathology and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan in 2016, a master’s degree in philosophy from the London School of Economics in 2017, and conducted her PhD studies in chemical & biomolecular engineering under the guidance of Profs. Denis Wirtz and PeiHsun Wu at the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering, completing her degree in 2021. Prof. Kiemen’s work focuses on development of novel deep learning and image processing approaches for improving our ability to map the microanatomy, immune profile, and genetic heterogeneity of large tissues. She is particularly interested in study of the development and invasion patterns of pancreatic cancer.
Denis Wirtz, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Through research at the interface of physics, biology, and oncology, Wirtz has made seminal contributions in cancer cell migration, cytoskeleton biophysics, and the nascent field of mechanobiology. He has developed quantitative methods, including particle-tracking microrheology, which are widely used both in academia and industry. He has also pioneered research in cell migration in 3D settings, bacterial cell division, and high-throughput cell phenotyping. Recently, he has developed CODA, a, AI-based method to image large volumes of tissues and tumors in 3D dimensions. Denis Wirtz has founded the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoaBioTechnology (INBT). He is the Director of the NCI-funded postdoctoral training program in nanotechnology for oncology and. Director of the NCI-funded Physical Sciences-Oncology Center (PS-OC) and the Johns Hopkins Cellular Cancer Biology Imaging Cancer (CCBIR) Center. Wirtz is author and co-author of 250 peer-reviewed articles published in journals such as Science, Nature, Cell, Nature Reviews Cancer, and Nature Cell Biology. His work at Hopkins has been cited >31,000 times and has an h-index of 94. Wirtz received the NSF Career award in 1995, was named Theophilius H. Smoot Professor of Engineering and Science in 2009, fellow of the Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) in 2007, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2009, and fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 2010, and member of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Belgium. Wirtz received a physics engineering degree from the Free University of Brussels in 1988, and MSc and PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 1993. Wirtz has been the Vice Provost for Research of Johns Hopkins University since 2014.
Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Eileen M. O’Reilly holds the Winthrop Rockefeller Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). She serves as the Section Head for Hepatopancreaticobiliary/ Neuroendocrine Cancers, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, Co-Director for Medical Initiatives at the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer and is an Attending Physician and Member at MSK and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. O’Reilly has pancreatic cancer as the major focus of her research and clinical activities. Research directions include integration of molecular and genetic-based therapies for pancreas cancer along with development of adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapies and identification of biomarkers for therapy selection. Dr. O’Reilly is the Principal Investigator of multiple phase I, II, III trials in pancreas cancer and is the Co-PI of the MSK Pancreas Cancer SPORE (Specialized Program of Oncology Research Excellence). Dr. O’Reilly’s is Chair of the Human Research Protection Program/IRB at MSK. She serves as the Co-Chair of the NCI Alliance Co-Operative Group Gastrointestinal Cancers Committee and is a member of the NCI Gastrointestinal Cancers Steering Committee (GISC), Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Guidelines Committee and the Board of the National Pancreas Foundation.
Elana Fertig, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab(s): The Data Science Hub, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Fertig directs a hybrid computational and experimental lab in the systems biology of cancer and therapeutic response to develop a new predictive medicine paradigm in cancer. Her wet lab develops time course models of therapeutic resistance and performs single cell technology development. Her computational methods blend mathematical modeling and artificial intelligence to determine the biomarkers and molecular mechanisms of therapeutic resistance from multi-platform genomics data. These techniques have broad applicability to the analysis of clinical biospecimens, developmental biology, and neuroscience. Dr. Fertig is a Professor of Oncology and Director of the Division / Associate Cancer Center Director in Quantitative Sciences, co-Director of the Convergence Institute, and co-Director of the Single-Cell Training and Analysis Center. She has secondary appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Applied Mathematics and Statistics, affiliations in the Institute of Computational Medicine, Center for Computational Genomics, Machine Learning, Mathematical Institute for Data Science, and the Center for Computational Biology and is a Daniel Nathans Scientific Innovator. Prior to entering the field of computational cancer biology, Dr Fertig was a NASA research fellow in numerical weather prediction.
Eric Christenson, MD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Eric Christenson, MD, is an early career medical oncologist at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Christenson received his bachelor’s degree from Villanova University and his MD from Drexel University College of Medicine. Upon graduation, Dr. Christenson performed residency training in the Osler Internal Medicine program at Johns Hopkins. He stayed on at Johns Hopkins for Medical Oncology Fellowship training and was a chief fellow.
Dr. Christenson’s work is focused on translating basic science discoveries and clinical observations into therapeutic strategies to improve patient outcomes in pancreatic and colorectal cancer. Dr. Christenson is passionate about the conduct of trials with strong clinical and correlative endpoints. Evaluation of the clinical and correlative data from these trials will then be used to generate additional hypotheses that will be tested in preclinical models and ultimately brought back to the clinic.
Dr. Christenson and has work have received numerous awards including an ASCO Young Investigator Award, a MacMillan Pathway to Independence program awardee, MD Anderson GI spore career enhancement program awardee, and receipt of Swim Across America funding.
Jin He, MD, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Jin He, MD, PhD is a surgical oncologist specializing in treating cancers and diseases of the liver, gallbladder, biliary system, pancreas, and stomach. He performs open and minimally invasive liver and pancreas surgery, including the Whipple procedure.
He is actively involved in clinical research to improve patient outcomes. His research focuses on personalized treatment through stratifying pancreatic tumors on their molecular features. He holds several patents in anti-cancer vascular targeting agents and has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and lectured internationally. He serves on several national committees, including the NCCN panel on neuroendocrine tumors. He is the editorial board member of several surgical journals, including Annals of Surgical Oncology and Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery.
Jiping Wang, MD, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Jiping Wang, MD, PhD is a surgical oncologist at Dana Farber and Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center, an Associate Professor of Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Wang obtained his PhD from University of Pittsburgh in Biostatistics and worked at National Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) as a statistician for 5 years. Dr. Wang’s main clinical focus is surgical treatment for hepatobiliary, pancreas and gastric cancer with minimally invasive approach. Dr. Wang has been involved in cancer research for more than twenty years. He was also a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) program committee and a member of the Oncology Surgery (SSO) research committee. Currently, he serves as Associate Director of Hepatobiliary Cancer Program, and Research Director at the Division of Surgical Oncology , Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Kevin Soares, MD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Kevin C. Soares MD is a physician-scientist, hepatopancreatobiliary surgical oncologist and Assistant Attending Surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical School. He attended the University of Massachusetts Medical School and completed general surgery residency at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He then completed a dual fellowship in hepatopancreaticobiliary surgery as well as complex general surgical oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His clinical practice focuses on diseases of the liver, pancreas, bile duct and gallbladder and implementing minimally invasive techniques in the management of these pathologies. Dr. Soares’s research focuses on combinatorial cancer immunotherapies in pancreas, liver, and bile duct cancers in order to better understand mechanisms abrogating responses to cancer immunotherapy in hepatobiliary malignancies.
Kimal Rajapakshe, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab:Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, The Data Science Hub
Kimal Rajapakshe is a Computational Scientist at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center with a decade of experience in analyzing and integration of multi-omics data from both solid tumor and liquid biopsy. He specialized in analyzing RNA-Seq(bulk and single cell), ATAC-Seq(bulk and single cell), genomic sequencing(WES & targeted), ChIP-Seq, Methylation array, proteomics and metabolomics data.
Laura D. Wood, MD, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab:Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Laura D. Wood, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor and Director of the Division of Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology in the Department of Pathology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Wood received her BS in Biology from the College of William & Mary, graduating Summa Cum Laude with membership in Phi Beta Kappa. She then went on to earn both her MD and PhD from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with membership in Alpha Omega Alpha. She completed her PhD research in the laboratory of Dr. Bert Vogelstein, where she led the first whole exome sequencing studies in human cancers. Dr. Wood then went on to complete residency in Anatomic Pathology (serving as Chief Resident in her final year) and fellowship in Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Now, she leads her own translational research laboratory focused on molecular characterization of pancreatic neoplasms. Her laboratory leverages next generation sequencing to characterize genetic heterogeneity and clonal evolution in precancerous pancreatic lesions. In addition, her group employs three-dimensional organoid culture models to interrogate the molecular drivers of pancreatic cancer invasion, and they are developing tools to transform human pancreatic pathology from two to three dimensions. In addition to her research program, Dr. Wood signs out clinical specimens on the Gastrointestinal Pathology service.
Lei Zheng, MD, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Lei Zheng, M.D., Ph.D. is Professor of Oncology and Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is the Cancer Center and the Department of Oncology’s Assistant Director for Translational Research and Associate Cancer Center Director for Precision Medicine. He co-leads the precision medicine research and practice at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins and Department of Oncology. He is Director for a new Multidisciplinary Gastrointestinal Cancer Laboratories Program at the Johns Hopkins Cancer Center. He is also Director of the Pancreatic Cancer Precision Medicine Center of Excellence at Johns Hopkins. His clinical work is focused on multidisciplinary management for pancreatic cancer, bile duct cancer, colorectal cancer liver metastases, and gastric cancer. He is affiliated with the Tumor Immunology Program as a laboratory investigator. His primary laboratory research focus is on the identification of new targets and strategy for pancreatic cancer immunotherapies by dissecting tumor microenvironment of pancreatic cancer. He is considered to be one of world’s leading pancreatic cancer oncologists and researchers and one of leading experts in preclinical and clinical development of cancer immunotherapy. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Pancreatic Cancer. In 2021, he was elected into the American Society of Clinical Investigation. He served or is serving as a Councilor for Pancreatic Disorders (PAN) section of the American Gastroenterological Association Institute Council, a Member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Grant Selection Committee and Education Committee, and a Member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Program Committee. He is also chairing the China Regional Advisory Group for the AACR International Affair Committee.
Linghua Wang, MD, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLabs: Intercepting Ovarian Cancer , Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, and The Data Science Hub
Dr. Wang is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Genomic Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Wang received her MD in Medicine and her PhD in Cancer Genomics and completed her postdoctoral training at Human Genome Sequencing Center, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics, at Baylor College of Medicine. She was recruited to MD Anderson in 2017 and set up the Computational Biology Laboratory. Dr. Wang has significant expertise in computational biology, cancer immunogenomics, single-cell and spatial multiomics. Over the past few years, she has built a leading research program in cancer immunogenomics at MD Anderson and developed a collaborative, team-based approach to tackle cancer research. Her group has a vast experience in unraveling the heterogeneity and evolution of the complex tumor-immune ecosystems using the cutting-edge single-cell and spatial sequencing technologies, coupled with the state-of-the-art computation and modeling. Dr. Wang is the principal investigator of the CPRIT Individual Investigator Research Award and she serves as a co-Investigator for several peer-reviewed grants from NIH/NCI and U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Wang is also the recipient of the Sabin Fellow Award, two SPORE Career Enhancement Program Awards and three Institutional Research Grant Awards. She serves as the Bioinformatics Lead and project co-Leader for two MD Anderson Cancer Moon Shot Projects and she also leads/co-leads several additional single-cell studies. When she was at Baylor, Dr. Wang also contributed significantly to the NHGRI rare cancer projects, the NCI Exceptional Responder Initiative, TCGA and pan-cancer projects. Dr. Wang is a productive investigator and she has published 32 first- or senior-authored papers over the past few years. Among them, 23 were published in the top-tier or other high-impact journals. As site Lead of Data Science for the pancreatic and ovarian cancer programs funded by Break Through Cancer, Dr. Wang is extremely enthusiastic to collaborate with world-renowned leaders, talented data scientists, and the multidisciplinary research teams across five participating institutions to develop effective data science strategies to better understand, detect, and treat the most lethal cancers.
Luciane T. Kagohara, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab(s): Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, The Data Science Hub
Dr. Luciane Kagohara is a molecular and computational biologist hybrid. She obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from Universidade Estadual Paulista (Botucatu, Brazil) and her Ph.D. from the A.C. Camargo Cancer Center (Sao Paulo, Brazil) at the Department of Pathology. Earlier in her carrier, she focused on the identification of epigenetic and genetic cancer biomarkers. During her postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University, she pursued training in bioinformatics and developed the expertise to perform combined experimental and computational research on epigenetic regulation of gene expression in acquired resistance. As a molecular biologist, she has extensive experience in experimental molecular biology and aptitude to design, optimize and execute a wide range of approaches, including single-cell, spatial transcriptomics, ATAC-seq, RNA-seq, among other molecular biology techniques. As a computational biologist, Dr. Kagohara can perform integrated analysis of genetic and epigenetic high-throughput data generated with different platforms. Her unique background is suitable for her research program which applies state-of-the-art technologies, like single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, to investigate mechanisms of resistance to different immuno-, chemo- and targeted therapies. Using single-cell and spatial technologies experimental and computational approaches to study clinical trial samples, Dr. Kagohara expects to discover molecular mechanisms and cellular interaction components of therapeutic resistance in cancers.
Pamela Constantinou Papadopoulos, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Pamela Papadopoulos is an Associate Director, Research Planning and Development in the Sheikh Ahmed Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research and the Moon Shots Program at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Papadopoulos received her B.A. in Chemistry from Vassar College and Ph.D. in Chemistry from New York University. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Bioengineering and was an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of BioSciences at Rice University. At MD Anderson, Dr. Papadopoulos is involved in several large, programmatic grants and initiatives. She applies her scientific background to provide scientific and administrative oversight to multi-PI and multidisciplinary programs.
Paola A. Guerrero, PhD
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
TeamLab: Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Guerrero is Research Group Leader at the Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She leads a liquid biopsy research/genomics group under the guidance of Dr. Anirban Maitra. She has a PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Texas A&M University and postdoctoral training from Baylor College of Medicine and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Her lab conducts innovative translational research on patient-derived models and biospecimens to study cell intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms of PDAC tumorigenesis. Some of her current work focuses on using limited biopsies from human primary and metastatic PDAC paired to scRNAseq. Her lab demonstrated that these specimens were able to capture all previously reported repertoire of cell types in surgical resections, including the tumor-stromal heterogeneity inherent to this disease, and revealed putative mechanisms for immune evasion within the tumor microenvironment. Her lab is also evaluating the prognostic and predictive role of cargo coding-RNA from extracellular vesicles in patients with colorectal cancer, with the idea of expanding these studies to other cancer types such as PDAC.
Pei-Hsun Wu
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Pei-Hsun Wu, is an Associate Research Professor at the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology and the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Dr. Wu received his bachelor’s degree from National Taiwan University and his PhD from University of Florida in Chemical Engineering. His lab’s research is focused the development of high throughput image-based single cell analysis methods to study complex biological systems and characterize the pathobiological process of diseases. I have a broad background in biophysics and engineering, with specific training and expertise in cell mechanics, quantitative imaging analysis, molecular biology, pathology, bioinformatics, cancer biology, and instrument development.
Rachel Karchin, PhD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies, The Data Science Hub
Rachel Karchin, PhD is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopins University and is a core member of the Institute for Computational Medicine. She holds joint appointments in the Departments of Oncology and Computer Science, and is a member of the Cancer Biology Program and of the Multidisciplinary Pancreatic Cyst Team, both within the Kimmel Cancer Center. Since 2007, she has been an affiliate member for the McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Karchin co-led The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) PanCan Atlas Essential Genes and Drivers Analysis Working Group (2017-2018). She received a BS in Computer Engineering (1998) and MS (2000) and PhD (2003) in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and completed her postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco in the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences. Her lab develops algorithms and software to analyze genomic data and interpret its impact on cancer, the immune system and tumor evolution. Karchin was the Whiting School of Engineering’s William R. Brody Faculty Scholar from 2013-2019. She was inducted as a Fellow in the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers in 2017, received the AACR Team Science Award in 2020 (TCGA) and was appointed a Distinguished Graduate Alumnus of the Jack Baskin School of Engineering at University of California, Santa Cruz in 2021.
Stephanie Dougan, PhD
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
TeamLab(s): Conquering KRAS in Pancreatic Cancer, Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Won Jin Ho, MD
The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins
TeamLab: Demystifying Pancreatic Cancer Therapies
Dr. Won Jin Ho is a gastrointestinal oncologist at Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins who focuses on cancer immunology and tumor microenvironment research of pancreatic and hepatobiliary cancers. Dr. Ho received his B.S. and M.S. in Bioengineering from UCLA, and his medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine. Dr. Ho then completed a research track internal medicine residency as NIH F32 postdoctoral fellow at Case Western Reserve University and subsequently completed his medical oncology fellowship as an AACR Immunology Research Fellow at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Ho currently co-leads the efforts in the gastrointestinal cancer research group to employ emerging high-parameter tools to empower biomarker discovery and development. Dr. Ho’s lab focuses on developing novel methodologies based on mass cytometry to determine the composition, functional states, as well as the spatial coordination of the cell types within the tumor microenvironment. Dr. Ho’s lab is also actively engaged in studies that focus on establishing novel therapeutic targets and strategies against cancer using preclinical models.
PROJECT SUMMARY
One reason pancreatic cancer has proven so deadly is that its cells often become both resistant to chemotherapy and very effective at evading the body’s natural immune response. Research strongly suggests that the tumor’s microenvironment contributes substantially the ability to develop drug resistance and to evade immune response.
Therefore, this project will explore therapeutic strategies that can target both the malignant cancer cells themselves and the multiple components in the stromal tissue—the non-cancer and non-immune cells that help hold the tumor together—that forms its microenvironment. To that end, the research team will pursue a “bench-to-bedside-to-bench” cycle of continuous knowledge-gathering: testing specific drugs combinations and, in parallel, using an array of cutting-edge techniques to analyze how tumor cells and the microenvironment adapt to the treatments.
The project’s knowledge-gathering cycles will focus on a series of three neoadjuvant therapy clinical trials. The trials will use a research design that the project team previously demonstrated to be safe and feasible in testing a new treatment strategy in the two weeks prior to surgical removal of a pancreatic tumor. The first of these clinical trials will evaluate a drug combination (an IL-8-CXCR1/2 inhibitor and an anti-PD-1 antibody) that had been the focus of a smaller study funded by the Lustgarten Foundation and will now be converted into a larger, multi-institutional trial. The project’s subsequent clinical trials will be selected in consultation with clinical experts in pancreatic surgery and medical oncology and with thought leaders in translational therapeutic development.
The project’s multifaceted analytical activities will be accomplished through the creation of a complex, collaborative study platform that incorporates expertise and state-of-the-art technologies from five leading institutions. In addition to tracking clinical impact, this powerful platform will study—at three-dimensional and single-cell levels—how the tumor microenvironment changes during the therapy and how the cancer cells adapt to the treatments.
The research team’s studies will include systematic analysis of post-treatment tumor specimens and of liquid biopsies using diverse genomic technologies. Such investigations will, for example, enable investigators to longitudinally monitor tumor genomic evolution through tissue. The scientists will also be able to use data on cells’ transcriptional signatures to quantify different tumor cell states and, subsequently, identify resilient tumor cells and the microenvironmental characteristics that empower them.
Thus, the study platform will enable the research team to accomplish two goals in parallel: comparing the effectiveness of three different treatment combinations, while rapidly advancing the scientific knowledge—such as discovery of cells’ response signatures and of possible resistance mechanisms—necessary to drive a breakthrough in pancreatic cancer therapies.
MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Break Through Cancer was created in February 2021 with an extraordinary matching gift of $250,000,000. Every gift to the Foundation supports groundbreaking cancer research and helps us to meet our matching commitment.
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