Dear Members of the Englander Institute,
On February 11th we recognized the International Day of Women and Girls in Science with a social media campaign on X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Blueskyhighlighting some of the amazing women who inspire and motivate us every day!
Many of you know about our very popular Summer Internship Program, administered jointly with our friends from the Meyer Cancer Center, but did you know that mentors insure that the next generation of scientists and engineers have a productive and meaningful experience? It's true, and you can help by signing up to be a mentor today and making a lasting impact on a young person!
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 Drs. Niro Anandasabapathy and Rohit Chandwani on their election to the American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI)!
"Diabetes Reversed in Islet Transplantation Preclinical Trial. Adding engineered human blood vessel-forming cells to islet transplants reversed diabetes in a preclinical trial," was published in Technology Networks Biopharma on February 24th covering new research in Nature Communications (see below) by Dr. Ge Li, a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of senior author and EIPM Member Dr. Shahin Rafii.
Congratulations to our colleague Dr. Ravi Sharaf, a gastroenterologist with a special focus on hereditary cancer, on being named a Castle Connolly top doctor for 2025!
Genetic discoveries by current & former EIPM colleagues including Dr. Lisa Newman could reduce black women's higher breast cancer death risk, but women with African ancestry have often been left out of breast cancer studies. That's now changing, and the progress was highlighted in a Scientific Americanarticle on February 24th. 
As legal battles play out over the new Administration's attempts to freeze federal funding and cut indirect cost payments from NIH, cancer research is being disrupted, I argue, in a February 26th article in Cancer Therapy Advisor.
Events
Congratulations to Dr. Laura Santambrogio, our Associate Director Precision Immunology, on being named Co-Chair of the 1st Gordon Research Conference on MHC-Restricted Antigen Processing and Presentation, to be held in Texas in February of 2026. Dr. Santambrogio will also be an Invited Speaker for the 2025 Women in Biotech conference in New York.
Publications
"Single-cell atlas of human pancreatic islet and acinar endothelial cells in health and diabetes," was published in Nature Communications on February 6th by Dr. Shahin Rafii and WCM colleagues. The paper was also covered by the WCM Newsroom website. Dr. Rafii and colleagues also published "Vascularization of human islets by adaptable endothelium for durable and functional subcutaneous engraftment," in Science Advances, on January 29th (too late for last month's newsletter).
"Comparative Analysis Between Olink-PEA and Alamar-NULISA Proteomic Technologies Applied to a Critically Ill COVID-19 Cohort," was published in Proteomics and Systems Biology, on February 10th by Dr. Karsten Suhre and colleagues from WCM-Qatar.
"Artificial INtelligence to Support Informed DEcision-making (INSIDE) for Improved Literature Analysis in Oncology," was published in European Urology Focus on February 19th by Clinical Director Dr. Cora N. Sternberg and Dr. Andrea Sboner from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM.
"PSKH1 kinase activity is differentially modulated via allosteric binding of Ca2+sensor proteins," was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on February 18th by Emily M. Huntsman and former colleague Tomer M. Yaron-Barir.
"Lymphatic messengers: Non-antigen soluble mediators from diseased tissues to draining lymph nodes," will be published in the April 2025 edition of Current Opinion in Immunology by our Associate Director for Precision Immunology Dr. Laura Santambrogio.
"Simultaneous immunomodulation and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition drives lung adenocarcinoma progression," was published in bioRxiv on February 22nd by our colleagues Dr. Junbum Kim, Hiranmayi Ravichandran, Dr. Liron Yoffe, Bhavneet Bhinder, Kyle Finos, Drs. Vivek Mittal, Nasser Khaled Altoriki, Timothy McGraw, and Director Olivier Elemento. 
"Transcriptional activation of regenerative hematopoiesis via microenvironmental sensing," was published in Nature Immunology on February 25th by Dr. Sean Houghton, a postdoc in the lab of our EIPM colleague Dr. Shahin Rafii, Dr. Jenny Z. Xiang, and WCM colleagues.
"Individual bioenergetic capacity as a potential source of resilience to Alzheimer’s disease. The findings provide evidence that therapeutically enhancing bioenergetic health may reduce the risk of symptomatic AD. Furthermore, monitoring the bioenergetic capacity via blood acylcarnitine measurements can be achieved using existing clinical assays," was published in Nature Communications on February 24th by our colleagues Drs. Jan Krumsiek and Karsten Suhre.
"Suppression of endothelial ceramide de novo biosynthesis by Nogo-B contributes to cardiometabolic diseases," was published in Nature Communications on February 25th by Rohan Bareja and Director Olivier Elemento.
"Kinome-Focused CRISPR-Cas9 Screens in African Ancestry Patient-Derived Breast Cancer Organoids Identify Essential Kinases and Synergy of EGFR and FGFR1 Inhibition," was published in Cancer Research on February 1st by Drs. Florencia P. Madorsky Rowdo and Sarah E. Ackermann; Marvel Tranquille, Adriana Irizarry, Ilkay Us, Omar Alawa, Jenna E. Moyer, Michael Sigouros, and John Nguyen; Dr. Majd Al Assaad from Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the EIPM; Jyothi Manohar, Dr. Lisa Newman; Drs. Juan Miguel Mosquera and Andrea Sboner from Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the EIPM; and Director Olivier Elemento. 
"Unusual Presentation of Advanced Urothelial Cancer in a Young Patient," was published in the February 2025th edition of AntiCancer Researchby Daniela Guevara; Drs. Ahmed G. Elsaeed, Juan Miguel Mosquera, and Majd Al Assaad from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM; Jyothi Manohar, Michael Sigouros; and Drs. Olivier Elemento, David Nanus andCora N. Sternberg.
"Mesonephric Adenocarcinoma in a Young Male Patient," was published in the February 2025 edition of AntiCancer Research by Daniela Guevara, Jyothi Manohar, and Michael Sigouros; Drs. Ahmed G. Elsaeed, Juan Miguel Mosquera and Majd Al Assaad from the Pathology and Laboratory Medicine department and the EIPM; and Drs. Olivier Elemento and Cora N. Sternberg. 
"Corrigendum to “Whole genome and transcriptome analysis of pancreatic acinar cell carcinoma elucidates mechanisms of homologous recombination deficiency and unravels novel relevant fusion events” [Pathol. - Res. Pract. 266 (2025) 155798]," was published in Pathology--Research & Practiceon February 1st by Jesús Delgado-de la Mora, Jyothi Manohar, and Michael Sigouros; with Drs. Majd Al Assaad, Andrea Sboner, Erika Hissong and Juan Miguel Mosquera from Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the EIPM; and our colleagues Drs. Olivier Elemento and Allyson J. Ocean.
"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 Chemistryon February 28th by Kathryn Gorski, Jyothi Manohar, and Dr. Andrea Sboner from Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the EIPM.
"A Deep-Learning Model for Multi-class Audio Classification of Vocal Fold Pathologies in Office Stroboscopy," was published in Laryngoscope on February 5th; and "AI-Powered Laryngoscopy: Exploring the Future With Google Gemini," was published in Laryngoscope on February 20th; both papers by Director Olivier Elemento, Ph.D. and WCM colleagues.
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