Category: News

Dr. Randall Kimple from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Carbone Cancer Center, will kick off our 2025 Meteorite Lectures with “Working together to widen the therapeutic ratio” at WashU Medicine on Tuesday, April 1.

Benjamin Major, PhD, BLST bioinformatics Core Lead, has been awarded a grant for his work entitled “Drugging NRF2 to improve radiation therapy in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma“. Total Award Amount (including Indirect Costs): $3,183,128 ($1,827,136 Washington University portion)

First author Brett Tortelli, MD, PhD, has been mentored by Dr. Julie Schwarz over the past three years as he has been studying the associations between the vaginal microbiome and the response of standard of care chemoradiation in locally advanced cervical cancer.

Clifford Robinson, MD, FASTRO, and Stephanie Markovina, MD, PhD, were both granted tenure by the WashU Medicine Board of Trustees in Fall, 2024.

Julie Schwarz, MD, PhD, presented her research in Paphos, Cyprus on November 1, 2024.

Ana Carolina Paschoalini Mafra, PhD, Postdoc Research Associate in the Schwarz Lab, presented cervical cancer research on November 1, 2024 at the Cancer Research Symposium held at WashU Medicine.

Acknowledged for contributions to the field, they have been named fellows of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO). Click to read full article.

Stephanie Markovina, MD, PhD inspired cancer biology PhD students by teaching them about radiation therapy and how to perform clinically relevant preclinical studies.

Stephanie Markovina, MD, PhD, METEOR Clinical Trial and Project 1 Co-l (Cervix) Lead has been awarded an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health in the amount of $2,865,128. Her work is entitled “The role of SERPINB3 in cervical cancer therapeutic resistance”.

Click to view photos – Jin, Matt, Trevor and Rohil present their work at the Radiation Research Society Meeting in Tucson, AZ – September, 2024

Radiation Research Society (RRS) has its 70th annual international meeting in September 2024. The WashU TARGET Center has multiple speakers and session chairs. S08:  Medicine/Biomarkers:  Matthew Inkman presenting TR 04:  ROBIN Educational component – Stephanie Markovina, Chair S11: ROBIN Evolution of Radiation Response – Julie Schwarz, Chair, Jin Zhang and Trevor Zimmerman presenting

Stephanie Markovina, MD, PhD, METEOR Clinical Trial and Project 1 Co-l (Cervix) Lead, and Jessika Contreras, MD have been awarded an R37 MERIT grant from the National Institutes of Health in the amount of $3,182,644. Their work is entitled, “Accelerated Brachytherapy Forward Chemoradiation Therapy (ABC-RT) for Cervical Cancer”.

Julie Schwarz, MD, PhD and Cliff Robinson, MD both received FELLOW designations from radiation oncology society ASTRO, and will be formally recognized in Washington, DC in October, 2024.

In July, 2024, Michael Waters, MD, PhD, joined the faculty of WashU Medical and joined the METEOR team. He also received a grant award from the WashU Gap Fund for $50,000 to support translational work for technology. His title is “Convolutional Neural Network Classification of Pretreatment Biopsies of Rectal Adenocarcinoma Predicts Complete Clinical Response to Short-Course Radiation and Consolidation Chemotherapy”.

Stephanie Markovina, MD, PhD, has been awarded a SIP grant towards her work in cervical cancer research. Her project title is “Targeting SERPINB3 to Improve Both Tumor and Immune Response in Cervical Cancer”

In April, 2024, Dr. David Sher, Vice Chair of Clinical Operations & Quality and Medical Director Chief of Head & Neck Radiation Oncology at University of Texas Southwestern, was our featured speaker for the Clinical Trials Bootcamp. His talk was entitled, “Precision H&N Radiotherapy: Technology to Biology”.

Stephanie Markovina, MD, PhD, has been named the Director of Resident Research for the Clinical Residency Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Washington University School of Medicine.

Learn more about one of our Medical Physics PhD Program students – Aaron Silvus, in our Trainee Corner interview.

Hua Li, PhD, has been awarded an R01 from the NIH for $3,260,592 over 5 years for her work entitled “Combined Imaging and RNA Analyses to Develop Cervical Cancer Biomarkers”

Jin Zhang, PhD, has been awarded an NCI R01 Research Project Grant in the amount of $1,663,760 over a period of 5 years. The title of his work is “Integrating multi-omics, imaging, and longitudinal data to predict radiation response in cervical cancer”. This is the second R01 grant Dr. Zhang has been awarded during 2023.

Cliff Robinson, MD has been selected to receive a 2024 Dean’s Impact Award from Washington University School of Medicine! This award recognizes faculty who have demonstrated enduring commitment to advancing the careers of others through exceptional mentorship and/or sponsorship. SO well deserved – congrats from your team!

Julie K. Schwarz, MD, PhD, a highly regarded radiation oncologist known for her innovative mindset in treating patients and leading research to develop new treatments for deadly gynecologic cancers and heart conditions, has been named a William H. Danforth Washington University Physician Scholar.