Schwarz presents at International Conference on Tumor Microenvironment and Cellular Stress

Julie Schwarz, MD, PhD, presented her research in Paphos, Cyprus on November 1, 2024. Her abstract: The combination of radiation therapy (RT) and immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) increases anti-tumor immunity; however, not all patients and tumors respond to this combination. RT has well known immune suppressive effects including stimulating the expression of chemokines and cytokines […]

Mafra presents at 2024 Cancer Research Symposium

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 Washington University in St. Louis.

Markovina awarded NIH R01

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”.

RRS Presentations 2024

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

TARGET Center well represented at RRS

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

Markovina and Contreras awarded an NIH R37 MERIT

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”.

Waters joins WashU and METEOR; awarded grant

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”.

Dr. Sher featured speaker at Clinical Trials Bootcamp

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”.

New leadership role for Dr. Markovina

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.

Li receives $3.2M R01 grant award

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”

Zhang awarded second R01 in one year

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.

Robinson receives Dean’s Impact Award

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!