April 2025 EIPM Director's Memo

Dear Friends & Members of the Englander Institute,

Please join me in congratulating Dr. Majd Al Assaad from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine Department and the EIPM for Matching last week with Pathology as an incoming 2025-2026 Resident!

I hope you enjoy reading about our recent departmental accomplishments, including news media coverage of our work, participation in major conferences & meetings, and impressive publications by a range of EIPM colleagues.

Thank you again for your continued hard work and dedication to our mission.

Sincerely,

Olivier Elemento, Ph.D.


News Coverage & Awards 
Congratulations to Dr. Niro Anandasabapathy on her election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI)!

Dr. Chris Barbieri co-wrote the UroToday Beyond the Abstract article "Canonical Androgen Response Element Motifs Are Tumor Suppressive Regulatory Elements in the Prostate," on March 12th. Dr. Barbieri also earned an NCI award for his research project, "Growth suppressive and oncogenic transcriptional programs controlled by the androgen receptor in prostate cancer," that began on March 1st. 

Our Chief Research Officer Dr. Bishoy Faltas published the following UroToday Expert Commentaries last month: "Molecular Determinants of Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma," on March 4th; "Combining Immune Checkpoint Inhibition with Human Recombinant IL-7 (CYT107) in Advanced Urothelial Cancer," on March 11th; "Genomic Profiling and Immune Phenotyping of Neuroendocrine Bladder Cancer," on March 17th; "Molecular Subtypes in Urothelial Carcinoma as Predictors of Response to Immunotherapy" on March 25th; "Secondary Bladder Cancer Risk and Long-Term Adverse Effects after Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer," on March 28th; and "Oncolytic Adenoviral Therapy in Combination with Nivolumab in Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer," on March 31st.

A recent paper from Nature Communications, "Individual bioenergetic capacity as a potential source of resilience to Alzheimer’s disease," by Drs. Jan Krumsiek and Dr. Karsten Suhre has been covered in Neuroscience News on March 14th, Technology Networks Neuroscience News and Research on March 17th; the Cornell Chronicle on March 18th, and Science Alert on March 29th.  

Dr. Lisa Newman (left) was among the 33 leaders selected on March 10th by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) to their newly elected 2025 class of Fellows of the AACR Academy!


Events
Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg moderated and presented on bladder cancer therapy at the 40th Annual European Association of Urology meeting in Madrid in March, and is an invited Keynote speaker at the International Kidney Cancer meeting in Amsterdam in May.

If you're heading to the 2025 AACR annual meeting be sure to check out the oral presentation "Morphological evaluation of chromosomal instability in circulating tumor cells and prediction of taxane resistance in metastatic prostate cancer: a prespecified sub-analysis of the CARD trial," co-authored by Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg in the Liquid Biopsy: Circulating Tumor Cells session on April 27th at 3:25 pm. 


Publications
"Exome Sequencing Reveals a Sparse Genomic Landscape in Kaposi Sarcoma," was published in Molecular Cancer Research on March 4th by Dr. Ethel Cesarman from Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and Bhavneet Bhinder and Director Olivier Elemento, Ph.D. 

"Upregulation of the interferon-inducible antiviral gene RSAD2 in neuroendocrine prostate cancer via PVT1 exon 9 dependent and independent pathways," was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry on February 28th by Katheryn Gorski and Jyothi Manohar, with Dr. Andrea Sboner from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM. 

A new Cornell Chronicle article from March 12th, "Flipping switch boosts stem cell numbers for therapies. A single molecular switch is essential for blood stem cells to enter an activated, regenerative state in which they produce new blood cells. The discovery could lead to more effective bone marrow transplants and gene therapies," recaps recent research in Nature Immunology (image right) by Dr. Shahin Rafii and colleagues. 

"Evaluation of ChatGPT as a Reliable Source of Medical Information on Prostate Cancer for Patients: Global Comparative Survey of Medical Oncologists and Urologists," Urology Practice, March 1st by Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg. 

"Predicting response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in muscle-invasive bladder cancer via interpretable multimodal deep learning," was published in NPJ Digital Medicine (image left) by Drs. Bishoy Faltas and Olivier Elemento on March 22nd. The paper was also covered by UroToday on March 25th and OncoDaily on March 31st. 

"Comparison of targeted RNA sequencing platforms for oncogenic fusion detection in non-small cell lung cancer," was published in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics on March 21st by Dr. Ashish Saxena and colleagues from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department. 

"A complex phylogeny of lineage plasticity in metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer," was published in Precision Oncology (image right) on March 28th by Dr. Juan Miguel Mosquera from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM; with EIPM colleagues Drs. Jones T. Nauseef, Alicia Alonso, Iman Hajirasouliha, David M. Nanus, Scott T. Tagawa and Olivier Elemento, and Michael Sigouros and Jyothi Manohar; also with Drs. Brian D. Robinson and Andrea Sboner from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM. 

"The Bridge2AI-Voice Application: Initial Feasibility Study of Voice Data Acquisition Through Mobile Health Bridge2AI Voice-App: Feasibility Study," was published in Frontiers in Digital Health on March 31st by Alexandros Sigaras and Director Olivier Elemento, Ph.D., with WCM colleagues. 

"A patient-derived T cell lymphoma biorepository uncovers pathogenetic mechanisms and host-related therapeutic vulnerabilities," was published in Cell Reports Medicineon March 26th by Drs. Liron Yoffe, Peter Martin, Associate Director for Precision Immunology Laura Santambrogio, Doron Betel, Director Olivier Elemento, withDr. Giorgio Inghirami from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM.

#  #  #