Honors, Awards + Achievements
Sherise Rogers, M.D.
Sherise Rogers, M.D., was selected as a recipient of a Minority and Minority-Serving Institution Faculty Scholar in Cancer Research Award for participation in the American Association for Cancer Research Special Conference: Pancreatic Cancer, held Sept. 13-16 in Boston. She presented “An exploratory analysis of the intestinal microbiome in neoadjuvant chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer.” Coauthors from the Cancer Center were Ryan Thomas, M.D., Brian Ramnaraign, M.D., Ilyas Sahin, M.D., Jesus Fabregas, M.D., FACP, Steven Hughes, M.D., Ibrahim Nassour, M.D., MSCS, Kathryn Hitchcock, M.D., Ph.D., Ji-Hyun Lee, DrPH, David DeRemer, Pharm.D., BCOP, FCCP, FHOPA, and Thomas George, M.D., FACP.
Additionally, she was accepted into the Clinical Research Education in Genome Science Short Course at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
Thomas George, M.D., FACP
Thomas George, M.D., FACP, was selected as chair-elect of the Clinical Research Innovation Steering Committee of the Association of American Cancer Institutes.
Jonathan Licht, M.D.
Jonathan Licht, M.D., received an R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute for a study, titled “Histone fold Mutations in Cancer Pathogenesis.”
Ji-Hyun Lee, DrPH
Ji-Hyun Lee, DrPH, was nominated for the presidency of the American Statistical Association (ASA) for the 2025 term. She is one of two ASA presidential candidates on the ballot for an election next spring. The ASA is the world’s largest community of statisticians, with more than 16,000 members in more than 90 countries.
Martina Murphy, M.D.
Martina Murphy, M.D., accepted the role of vice chair of mentoring on the leadership team of the American Society of Clinical Oncology Medical Education Community of Practice.
Janice Krieger, Ph.D.
Janice Krieger, Ph.D., received a U01 grant from the National Cancer Institute for a study, titled “Precision Clinical Trial Recruitment to Promote Cancer Health Equity Across Florida.” She is collaborating on the project with co-principal investigator Olveen Carrasquillo, M.D., professor of medicine and public health sciences at the University of Miami Health System/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Sumita Bhaduri-McIntosh, M.D., Ph.D.
Sumita Bhaduri-McIntosh, M.D., Ph.D., received a $3.2 million U01 grant from the National Cancer Institute for a study, titled “Synthetic Lethal Targeting of EBV-Positive Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphomas in Persons Living with HIV.” She is collaborating on the project with co-principal investigator Michael McIntosh, Ph.D., at UF.
Ramzi Salloum, Ph.D.
Ramzi Salloum, Ph.D., received a $2.6 million grant from the National Cancer Institute, titled “Phone Enabled Implementation of Cessation Support (PHOENICS).” The objective of the project is to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of promising multi-component interventions for implementing evidence-based tobacco treatment in Lebanon’s national system of safety net primary health care centers.
Subha Guha, Ph.D.
Subha Guha, Ph.D., is a principal investigator on an approximately $1 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop strategies to accurately identify racial disparities in cancer outcomes while accounting for social determinants, environmental forces and genetic factors. Guha and his colleagues at the University of Michigan and Harvard University will leverage large information-rich databases such as the Boston Lung Cancer Survival Cohort and the International Lung Cancer Consortium to create new frameworks for data analysis.
Arkaprava Roy, Ph.D.
Arkaprava Roy, Ph.D., received $110,000 from the National Science Foundation for a study, titled “Novel Modeling and Bayesian Analysis of High-Dimensional Time Series.” Two other principal investigators, Anindya Roy, M.D., and Subhashis Ghosal, Ph.D., received separate awards. The aim of this research is to develop novel interpretable models for intrinsic relations among components of multidimensional time series and related computational techniques.
Mattia Prosperi, Ph.D.
Mattia Prosperi, Ph.D., and Marco Salemi, Ph.D., received an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to build an algorithm to spot new COVID-19 variants of concern. This $3.7 million grant team includes Maria Luisa Alcaide, M.D., and Deborah Jones, Ph.D., of the University of Miami, and machine learning researchers and engineers at the University of Pavia, Italy.
Zhijian Qian, Ph.D., and Jatinder Lamba, Ph.D.
Zhijian Qian, Ph.D., and Jatinder Lamba, Ph.D., received a $1,913,892 grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases for a study, titled “The Role of ALKBH5-Mediated RNA Demethylation in the Maintenance of Genomic Stability in HSPCs.”
Rolf Renne, Ph.D.
Rolf Renne, Ph.D., presented “Immune Control and Its Evasion by CMV and Other DNA Viruses” at an international symposium in Dubrovnik, Croatia. He also presented a poster at the 20th International Symposium on Epstein-Barr Virus and Associated Diseases in Siena, Italy, on graduate student Soleil Torres’ project, titled “Characterization of Circ-vIRF4 in Kaposi’s Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus.”
Additionally, graduate student Yuan Hong presented “Antisense-Latency Transcript Long Noncoding RNA in Kaposi’s Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus Perturbs Host Alternative Splicing Regulation” at the 2022 Kaposi’s Sarcoma Herpesvirus meeting in Aurora, Colorado.
Matthew Merritt, Ph.D.
Matthew Merritt, Ph.D., received a $2,245,264 grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering for a study, titled “HDO Imaging is a Quantitative Marker of Cerebral Glucose Oxidation.”
John Ligon, M.D.
John Ligon, M.D., received a $200,000 Hyundai Hope on Wheels Young Investigator Grant for a study, titled “Establishment of 3D Metastatic Osteosarcoma Organoid Models to Accelerate Combination Immunotherapy.”
Additionally, he served on the Department of Defense study sections for the neurological cancer panel and Rare Cancer Research Program. He also served as the UF site principal investigator for the Pediatric Real World CAR Consortium and on the Steering Committee for PRE-medical Cancer Immunotherapy Network Canine Trials (PRECINCT).
Helen Moore, Ph.D.
Helen Moore, Ph.D., presented “Early Prediction of Patient Response to Immunotherapy” at the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Life Sciences Conference. She also spoke about non-academic jobs on the career panel at the society’s annual meeting.
Mei He, Ph.D.
Mei He, Ph.D., participated in the National Institutes of Health Somatic Cell Genome Editing U01 Panel.
Melike Caglayan, Ph.D.
Melike Caglayan, Ph.D., presented at the Second Southern Genome Maintenance Conference in Miami. She also presented “Interplay between DNA polymerase β and DNA ligase I governs the efficiency of base excision repair at the downstream steps” at the 86th Symposium: Genome Stability & Integrity meeting presented by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Additionally, she received an American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Travel Award.
Sara Jo Nixon, Ph.D.
Sara Jo Nixon, Ph.D., was named a distinguished professor, the highest faculty honor at UF.
Curtis Bryant, M.D., Catherine Flores, Ph.D., and Nadja Makki, Ph.D.
Curtis Bryant, M.D., Catherine Flores, Ph.D., and Nadja Makki, Ph.D., were selected to serve as diversity liaisons for the UF College of Medicine. They will serve on departmental leadership teams and collaborate across the college to promote and celebrate workplace diversity and inclusion, as well as advance health care equity and access.
Carma Bylund, Ph.D., and Stephanie Staras, Ph.D.
Carma Bylund, Ph.D., was named director of education for the department of health outcomes & biomedical informatics. Along with the assistant director of education, she will oversee the department’s graduate education programs, including two Ph.D.s, two master’s and two certificates. She will also support professional development for students and graduate faculty.
Stephanie Staras, Ph.D., received a FACCA 2022 Pilot Project grant, titled “Trends and Disparities in Cervical Cancer Screening Uptake and Follow-Up Among Women in Florida.” She is collaborating with Jessica Islam, Ph.D., assistant professor in cancer epidemiology at the Moffitt Cancer Center, and Matthew Schlumbrecht, M.D., associate professor in the department of obstetrics & gynecology at the University of Miami Health System/Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Additionally, Dr. Bylund and Dr. Staras both presented at the 20th International Conference on Communication in Healthcare, a leading international conference held at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland from Sept. 5-9. Dr. Bylund’s presentations were titled “How do oncology clinicians respond to patients about cancer misinformation found online?” and “Transitions of care in blood cancer: Exploring supportive care needs from treatment into survivorship.” Dr. Staras’ presentation was titled “Training clinicians to recommend the HPV vaccine using a C-LEAR communication strategy.”
Elias Sayour, M.D., Ph.D., and Raymond Mailhot, M.D.
Elias Sayour, M.D., Ph.D., moderated a panel, titled “Expanding conventional treatments and increasing access to technology,” at the Live Like Bella Childhood Cancer Foundation Research Symposium held Sept. 16 in Miami. He was also a panelist during a session titled “Changing paradigms & challenging universal guidelines.”
Also at the symposium, Raymond Mailhot, M.D., was a panelist during a session titled “Understanding long-term recovery & advancements in post-treatment care.”
Muhammad Zaafir Dulloo (Ph.D. student)
Muhammad Zaafir Dulloo, a Ph.D. student training with Ronald Castellano, Ph.D., received the 2022 M.A. Battiste Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, sponsored by Petra Research. His work in the Castellano lab involves a class of disulfide-bond disrupting agents. These small molecule cyclic thiosulfonates, which bind covalently to the cysteine residue in the active site of select protein disulfide isomerases, possess the ability to downregulate epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) family members in parallel and to selectively kill EGFR overexpressing breast cancer cells. Through lead compound optimization and formulation efforts, he aims to develop a new class of single agents to treat aggressive forms of breast cancer.
Fantine Giap, M.D., Julie Bradley, M.D., Oluwadamilola Oladeru, M.D., and Young-Rock Hong, Ph.D.
Fantine Giap, M.D., Julie Bradley, M.D., Oluwadamilola T. Oladeru, M.D., and Young-Rock Hong, Ph.D., coauthored an abstract submitted to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Quality Care symposium that received a 2022 Conquer Cancer Merit Award. The Merit Award program was established in 1995 to recognize high-quality abstracts submitted by oncology fellows and residents and encourage their attendance at ASCO meetings. This year’s Quality Care Symposium was Sept. 30 to Oct. 1 in Chicago. The abstract, titled “Palliative care utilization and trends among patients with metastatic breast cancer: A SEER-Medicare analysis,” was also selected for poster presentation at the symposium.
Padraic O’Malley, M.D., and Paul Crispen, M.D.
Padraic O’Malley, M.D., presented “Intraluminal Therapy for Upper Tract Urothelial Care,” at the Florida Urological Society’s Annual Meeting, held Sept. 1-4 in Miami Beach. His presentation highlighted the importance of strategies to decrease bladder tumor recurrences. Paul Crispen, M.D., moderated the “Renal and Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma” session.
Erin Mobley, Ph.D., Noah Hammarlund, Ph.D., Lisa Scarton, Ph.D., and Diana Wilkie, Ph.D.
Erin Mobley, Ph.D., Noah Hammarlund, Ph.D., Lisa Scarton, Ph.D., R.N., and Diana Wilkie, Ph.D. R.N., FAAN, presented abstracts at the 15th American Association for Cancer Research Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved, held Sept. 16-19 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Dr. Mobley presented “Inequities in financial burden, quality of life, and physical functioning among cancer survivors: A nationally-representative Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS) study.” Dr. Hammarland presented “The role of place in racial disparities in prostate cancer treatment.” Dr. Scarton presented “Feasibility metric outcomes: A nurse-led intervention to identify and manage undiagnosed type 2 diabetes in patients with newly diagnosed cancer.” Dr. Wilkie presented “Dignity therapy effects by race: Chaplain and nurse implementation in pragmatic, multisite stepped-wedge randomized control trial.”
Other presentations involving the Cancer Center included “Pancreatic cancer survival disparities in Florida using a statewide database” and “Pharmacogenetics of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: A review of racial disparities” presented by Guettchina Telisnor; “Differences in financial toxicity (FT) by cancer type among patients assigned female at birth (AFAB)” presented by Cristina Orozco; and “Computational pathway analysis of differentially expressed miRNAs in Black compared with White laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma” presented by Chayil C. Lattimore.
Suzanne Lightsey (doctoral student)
Suzanne Lightsey, a doctoral student in the lab of Blanka Sharma, Ph.D., passed her qualifying examination. Her work involves advancing 3D tumor models and natural killer cell immunotherapies. Committee members included Meghan Ferrall-Fairbanks, Ph.D., Walter Murfee, Ph.D., and Dietmar Siemann, Ph.D.