October 2026 EIPM Director's Memo

Dear Friends & Members of the Englander Institute,

We are very happy to share "A Conversation with Dr. Eleni Andreopoulou, M.D." and hope you enjoy learning about our EIPM colleague, her career in breast oncology, thoughtful opinions on AI, a fascinating professional journey from Greece to London and on to New York City, and what she loves to do in her free time!

If you didn't get a chance to meet our 2026 EIPM summer intern Salah, who worked under EIPM Member Alexandros Sigaras MS, Assistant Professor of Research in Physiology and Biophysics, in our AI-XR Lab, you can watch our new video about his summer project, challenges he overcame, the fun he had, and how his confidence grew over time!

We hope you enjoy the news, awards, events and publications listed below from our EIPM colleagues, including a big new promotion & award for Dr. Dan Landau, significant new grants for Drs. Tagawa & Zippin, an important new research project by Dr. Jan Krumsiek with Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine, and impressive new publications by EIPM Director Olivier Elemento, Bhavneet Bhinder, Iman Hajirasouliha, Lieke Michielsen, Alyssa Duren-Lubanski, Benjamin D. Hopkins, Tomer M. Yaron-Barir and Emily M. Huntsman, Cora N. Sternberg, Daniela Guevara, Laura Santambrogio and Sylvia Formenti!

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

Sincerely,

Olivier Elemento, Ph.D.

News Coverage & Awards
A recent Nature Communications paper I wrote with my former doctoral student Wei Du, and Drs. Lamberto De Boni and Benjamin David Hopkins, was covered by the news outlet Phys.org, "Virtual cell model could accelerate protein-degrader therapy design," on August 27th.

Our colleague Dr. Dan Landau was named Inaugural Chair of the Department of Systems and Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, also earned the ESMO Award for Translational Research, for advancing the understanding of cancer evolution through innovative genomic and computational research and for advancing the translation of these discoveries into clinical applications. Congrats Dan!

"Smart-Start Therapy for Canine B-Cell Lymphoma. Colleagues from Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine and New York University are partnering with the EIPM's Dr. Jan Krumsiek on a new trial, "Smart-Start Therapy for Canine B-Cell Lymphoma," to address one of the most common cancers we see in dogs. Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine, September 15th.

"Etcamah grabs FDA approval for advanced breast cancer with ESR1 mutations. 'This is the proof that precision medicine is changing the practice of breast oncology,' said Massimo Cristofanilli, MD, Scientific Director of the EIPM." Healio on September 4th.

"New Research Is Giving Hope To Patients With Small Cell Lung Cancer." EIPM's Dr. Ashish Saxena discusses the latest research advances for small cell lung cancer and the importance for newly diagnosed patients to ask about clinical trials available. WVON 1690AM Chicago, September 15th.

On September 14th our colleague Dr. Jonathan Zippin earned a new Competing Continuation Award from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases for his project, "Mechanisms of cAMP-dependent regulation of melanosome pH," $2.75M over 5 years!

"Her son was dying, but his rare cancer made it difficult to get the right drug," a CBS News Health Watch article on September 21st featuring EIPM Director Olivier Elemento, PhD. The same article was republished by Yahoo News on September 21st, Physicians Weekly on September 25th, and MedPage Today/KFF Health News on September 28th.

"Why Read a Research Paper When You Can Turn It Into an AI Agent? Paper2Agent lets scientists “agentify” their published research for others to query." IEEE Spectrum article quoting Director Olivier Elemento, Ph.D.

Congratulations to our colleague Dr. Scott T. Tagawa who has received a $2 million grant from the Department of Defense to lead Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian’s participation in the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium (PCCTC), part of the DoD’s Prostate Cancer Research Program. Dr. Tagawa was also interviewed for the Every Day Health article "How to Decode Your PSMA-PET Scan and Track Your Metastatic Prostate Cancer Treatment Progress," that ran September 23rd.

"FDA panel endorses first-of-a-kind cancer blood test from Grail. The Galleri test doesn’t diagnose cancer but instead, with a single blood draw, looks for a signal that someone may have one of a long list of tumors. Those who receive a positive result need additional care to tell if they’re really sick." Associated Press, September 23rd. Congratulations to our Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg for serving as WCM's PI on this research.

Congratulations to Dr. Niroshana Anandasabapathy on her new $3.5 million NIH grant to study "Anti-PD1 driven tissue pathogenesis, towards preventing and treating irAE toxicity during cancer therapy."

Events
On September 23rd our Director of Informatics and Computational Biology Dr. Andrea Sboner presented "Clinical Bioinformatician Body of Knowledge—Bioinformatics and Software Core," to provide an in-depth overview of the Clinical Bioinformatician Body of Knowledge (BoK) developed by the Association for Molecular Pathology.

Also on September 23rd, our Senior Research Associate Bhavneet Bhinder, MS presented an EIPM AI Clinic, “Making AI Working with Your Own Knowledge - How RAG Helps Researchers and Clinicians
Get Better Answers."

On September 15th our Director of Ex Vivo Models Dr. Ben Hopkins (image right) & Assistant Professor of Research in Neuroscience Dr. Stefano Cirigliano (second from left) presented an EIPM Precision Medicine Seminar!

Publications
Role of orphan G protein-coupled receptor GPR52 in breast cancer cell multicellular organization and collective invasion," was published in the British Journal of Cancer on August 20th by EIPM Director Olivier Elemento, PhD, Bhavneet Bhinder, MS and colleagues.

"Spatial isoform sequencing at single-cell resolution reveals cell-type-specific spatial isoform variability in multiple brain cell types. Overall, [these] experimental/analytical methods enable a submicron-resolution-isoform view and open avenues for spatial isoform disease research." was published in Nature Methods on September 4th by our colleagues Drs. Iman Hajirasouliha and Lieke Michielsen.

"A Real-Time Image-Based Co-Culture Assay to Quantify Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocyte-Mediated Apoptotic Killing of Patient-Derived Tumor Organoids," was published in the Journal of Visualized Experiments on September 3rd by our current and former colleagues Alyssa Duren-Lubanski, Enrique Podaza, M Laura Martin, Director Olivier Elemento, and Benjamin D. Hopkins.

"Effects of refined carbohydrates on immune markers after weight loss on a very-low-carbohydrate diet: A randomized controlled feeding trial," was published in Cell Press Blue on September 9th by EIPM’s Director of Ex Vivo Models Dr. Benjamin D. Hopkins and colleagues. The paper was also covered in SciMex on September 10th.

"Proteogenomic analysis of pediatric and AYA high-grade glioma reveals age-dependent biology, female-male differences, and kinase targets." Cell Reports Medicine article by Tomer M. Yaron-Barir and Emily M. Huntsman on September 17th.

"Cardiovascular Risk Triage Schema for Patients With Prostate Cancer Treated With Hormone Therapy. The proposed three-tier schema should be viewed as a hypothesis-generating checklist for oncology, urology, radiation oncology, primary care, and cardiovascular teams. Prospective validation, workflow testing, calibration of referral thresholds, and inclusion of patient and clinic-staff stakeholders are required before broad implementation." JCO Oncology Practicearticle on September 28th by Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg and colleagues.

"Clinical and Molecular Profiles of Treatment-Emergent Small Cell Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancers in the Era of Intensified Systemic Therapies," was published in Cancer Research Communications on September 29th by our Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg and Dr. Daniela Guevara.

"Cervical lymphadenectomy impairs brain lymphatic clearance and synaptic proteostasis," was published in Neuron on September 29th by our Associate Director for Precision Immunology Dr. Laura Santambrogio and Dr. Silvia Formenti. Neuroscience News reported on this research in their September 29th article, "Neck Cancer Surgery May Disrupt Brain Drainage and Cognition."

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