Dear Friends & Members of the Englander Institute,
We recently profiled our Director of Ex Vivo Models, Dr. Ben Hopkins, to explain how his team builds organoid models of tumors to test different therapeutics, aiming to find new treatments and improve patient care. The overarching goal is to translate research findings into the clinic to benefit patients. We hope you enjoy the interview!
We are looking for EIPM Journal Club speakers for in-person meetings (in either Belfer 1401 or Greenberg Y1301). Topics can vary, including but not limited to: precision medicine, genetics, and artificial intelligence in medicine, among other hot button issues in top tier journals. We are open to all ideas to promote lively discussions with varying viewpoints (rather than a summary of the paper). Available dates: March 12th or 26th; April 9th, 23rd or 30th; May 7th or 28th; June 4th or 11th. Please contact @Bhavneet Bhinder or @Suzanne Jlelaty with questions or suggestions.
I hope you enjoy reading about our recent departmental accomplishments, including news media coverage of our work, interesting & engaging departmental events, information on our new AI Clinic, and impressive publications in top-tier journals like Nature Genetics.
Thank you again for your continued hard work and dedication to our mission.
Sincerely,
Olivier Elemento, Ph.D.
News Coverage & Awards
Please join us in congratulating our Chief Research Officer Dr. Bishoy Faltas on being awarded tenure! In an interview with OncoDaily Dr. Faltas said ”I’m deeply grateful to my family, mentors, collaborators, and the many friends and colleagues in the field who have supported me in so many ways over the years. Too many names to list here! Thank you to every single one of you."
Director Olivier Elemento, Ph.D. received a Clarivate 2025 Highly Cited Researcher Award on November 11th! 
Dr. Elemento's blog post, "Why Most Clinical AI Models Fail to Reach Real-World Practice," appeared in OncoDaily on November 18th. And OncoDaily published an interview with Dr. Elemento on November 12th entitled "First Atomically Accurate de novo Design of Antibodies from Scratch."
Events
On November 12th we provided a tour of our labs, meeting with staff, and briefing about our important work for representatives from the offices of U.S. Senators, U.S. House of Representatives, N.Y. State Senators & Assembly people, and the NYC Council.
Dr. Andrea Sboner from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and EIPM's Director of Informatics and Computational Biology presented at the Association for Molecular Pathology's annual meeting on Saturday, November 15th during the "Meet the Authors: AMP Clinical Bioinformatician Body of Knowledge Series," session about findings from his recent Journal of Molecular Diagnostics paper describing the roles and activities of a clinical bioinformatician.
We are excited to announce the upcoming launch of the AI Clinic, hosted by EIPM. These bi-weekly one-hour sessions will be held in-person (either in the WGC ICB Conference Room or Belfer 1401, depending on availability) to enhance how we use LLMs for complex tasks, including coding. They will serve as a collaborative space for hands-on troubleshooting, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning."
We are currently seeking Super-Users who demonstrate expertise in coding and experience with AI tools such as GPT-5/Codex, Claude Sonnet 4.5/Claude Code, and Gemini 2.5 Pro. If you are interested in attending AI Clinic Meetings, please fill out this form. Please feel free to reach out to Victoria Cummings (vjc4001@med.cornell.edu) directly with any inquiries, questions, or comments.
Publications
A microenvironment-driven HLA-II-associated insulin neoantigen elicits persistent memory T cell activation in diabetes," was published in Nature Immunology on November 28th by our Associate Director for Precision Immunology Dr. Laura Santambrogio.
"Evaluation of Event-Free Survival as a Surrogate Endpoint for Overall Survival in Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer Following Neoadjuvant Treatment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis," was published in Oncology and Therapy on November 4th by Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg and colleagues. 
"Longitudinal genomic analysis of five cases of recurrent thymomas," was published in The Journal of Thoracic Oncology on November 18th by Drs. Peter Waltman, Vivek Mittal, Nasser Altorki, Ashish Saxena, Alicia Alonso, and Olivier Elemento, along with Dr. Andrea Sboner from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM, as well as Troy Kane, Michael Sigouros, Pooja Chandra, and Kathryn Gorski.
"Chromosomal instability in circulating tumor cells and cabazitaxel resistance in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer," was published in JCI Insight on November 4th by Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg and colleagues. 
"Meningeal lymphatic architecture and drainage dynamics surrounding the human middle meningeal artery," was published in iScience on November 21st by Hiranmayi Ravichandran and colleagues. 
"Effect of TGF-β mediated phenotypic changes on prostate cancer cell anoikis response. In this study, the authors investigated how TGF-β regulated EMT-MET (mesenchymal epithelial transition) phenotypic interconversions to enhance anoikis response in pre-clinical models of prostate cancer (PCa)," was published in Oncogene on November 23rd by our Director of Ex Vivo Models, Dr. Benjamin D. Hopkins and Translational Research Specialist Maitri Anegondi! UroToday reported on the paper on November 24th. 
"A microenvironment-driven, HLA-II-associated insulin neoantigen elicits persistent memory T cell activation in diabetes," was published by our Associate Director for Precision Immunology Dr. Laura Santambrogio recently as a bioRxiv preprint, and is expected to be published soon in Nature Immunology.
"Passenger mutations link cellular origin and transcriptional identity in human lung adenocarcinomas," was published in Nature Genetics on November 27th by Dr. Juan Miguel Mosquera from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM.
"NSD2 targeting reverses plasticity and drug resistance in prostate cancer," was published in Nature on November 26th by Dr. Brian D. Robinson from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM.
"Thrombospondin-1–CD47 signaling contributes to the development of T cell exhaustion in cancer," was published in Nature Immunology on November 17th by Dr. Niroshana Anandasabapathy
"MRD-driven Initial Therapy of Acalabrutinib and Lenalidomide plus Rituximab (ALR) or Obinutuzumab (ALO) for Mantle Cell Lymphoma," was published in Blood Advances on November 25th by our EIPM colleagues Bhavneet Bhinder, Jenny Z. Xiang, Michael Sigouros, Olivier Elemento, John P. Leonard, Peter Martin, and Dr. Giorgio Inghirami from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM.
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