Some of the brightest minds in cancer research are attracted to the OSUCCC – James and its vast array of resources. Pelotonia dollars help these researchers continue their groundbreaking work when they arrive. Among the many recent recruits are these prominent scientists:
Brad Blaser, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology. He also is a member of the Leukemia Research Program at the OSUCCC – James. He is a medical scientist whose research interest involves identifying factors in the hematopoietic niche that promote the development of myeloid neoplasia.
Edmund Folefac, MBCHB, is an assistant professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology. He specializes in genitourinary cancers, melanomas and lung cancers. His research focuses on smoking cessation in the context of preventing lung cancer, and on screening, health care efficiency, cancer and aging, and personalized medicine.
Nicole Grieselhuber, MD, PhD, is an assistant professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology and Division of Medical Oncology, where she conducts research in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Her research interests include molecular mechanisms of leukemogenesis, pharmacology of targeted inhibitors and applying genomic technologies to patient care.
Amanda Hummon, PhD, is an associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Her research interests involve analytical chemistry and chemical biology, with a focus on cancer biology. Her team develops analytical methods to evaluate the transcriptome and the proteome in cancer cells, while exploring deregulation in cancer-associated signal transduction pathways.
Zachary Schultz, PhD, is an associate professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. His team focuses on developing tools for identifying molecules relevant to biomedical diagnostics and other applications. To do this, the team builds and develops instrumentation that takes advantage of chemical properties to characterize complex biologic samples.
Hiral Shah, MD, is an assistant professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology, where she specializes in treating patients with melanoma and other cutaneous malignancies. Her research focuses on early-phase clinical trials using immunotherapy for treatment of cutaneous malignancies. She also works to identify predictive biomarkers in melanoma patients who develop brain metastasis.
Gina Sizemore, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and member of the OSUCCC – James Molecular Biology and Cancer Genetics Program. Her research integrates in vitro and in vivo modeling of the brain metastatic tumor microenvironment (TME) to provide mechanistic insight into how the brain metastatic TME contributes to breast cancer metastatic progression. Current studies aim to elucidate whether platelet-derived growth factor receptor-beta (PDGFRß) signaling is a promising pathway for diagnostic and/or therapeutic purposes for metastatic breast cancer patients.
Steven Sizemore, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and member of the OSUCCC – James Molecular Biology and Cancer Genetics Program. His research focuses on elucidating the mechanisms of cancer metastasis and developing therapies to improve outcomes for patients with metastatic disease. Metastatic breast cancer and metastatic soft tissue sarcoma are the areas of concentration for his research.
Philip Tsichlis, MD, is a professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Cancer Biology and Genetics. He also serves as co-leader of the Molecular Biology and Cancer Genetics Program at the OSUCCC – James. His lab focuses on using insertional mutagenesis and other genetic strategies to identify genes involved in causing cancer or regulating phenotypic changes in tumor cells. Tsichlis and colleagues have identified and exploited a number of genes implicated in cancer, including Akt1, Tpl2, Gfi-1 and Gfi-1B.