Pathology faculty and researchers present at AACR meeting

Postdoctoral researchers Srijan Acharya, Ph.D., Shashi Anand, Ph.D., Sarabjeet Kour Sudan, Ph.D., and Amod Sharma, Ph.D., attend the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting.

Faculty and cancer researchers from the USA Department of Pathology and the USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute joined thousands of scientists from around the world at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting, held recently in New Orleans. They presented a total of eight posters that covered findings on multiple cancer types, including breast, gastric, lung, pancreatic and prostate, focusing on different biological aspects of disease.

Srijan Acharya, Ph.D.

Srijan Acharya, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher, presented two posters concerning prostate cancer, the second leading cause of cancer-related death in American men. In one poster, he presented data pertaining to the mechanisms underlying opposing roles of androgen signaling in prostate cancer. In the second one, he described molecular factors related to racial disparities in incidence and clinical outcome in patients with prostate cancer. He received the Young Investigator Award in the postdoctoral category by the American Association of Indian Scientists in Cancer Research (AAISCR) for his research findings.  

Shashi Anand, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher, presented findings from his research on pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, which accounts for more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases, is highly aggressive and resistant to treatment. Anand examined how the MYB gene plays an essential role in the survival of pancreatic cancer cells under hypoxia, a state of low oxygen levels in the cancer tissues. 

Sarabjeet Kour Sudan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher, presented her research on breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer-related death in American women. When compared with white women, Black women have earlier onset of breast cancer, are frequently diagnosed with aggressive triple-negative subtype, and have higher mortality rates. She discussed the interplay of social and biological factors that may be linked to these health disparities.

Amod Sharma, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher, explored how cortisol, the primary stress hormone, has an immunosuppressive effect that can contribute to cancer development via indirect mechanism. In his poster presentation, he discussed how cortisol affects macrophage polarization via reprogramming of glucose metabolism.

Sandeep Goswami, Ph.D.

Sandeep Goswami, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher, presented findings from his research on gastric cancer. He examined how the loss of KLF4, a transcription factor protein, results in disruption of epithelial barrier function in gastric cancer and promotes metastasis. Gastric cancer is potentially curable when diagnosed early with survival rates of more than 90%. This number, however, sharply declines to less than 20% when diagnosed at advanced stages.

Santanu Dasgupta, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology, and Shubhangi Singh, a pre-med student at the University of South Alabama, presented posters on lung cancer research. In 2020, the disease killed 1.8 million people worldwide and 136,000 people in the United States. 

Dasgupta discussed the findings from his group on the role of mitochondria in lung cancer development. Despite significant improvement in multimodal therapeutic approaches, the overall five-year survival rate for lung cancer patients is only 21.7%. Findings from his research may open up novel avenues for therapeutic and biomarker interventions to improve the overall survival of lung cancer patients.

Singh discussed the differential expression of angiogenesis-associated genes in smoker and non-smoker lung adenocarcinoma patients. This is in continuation of her previous work that she completed at the Mitchell Cancer Institute to show a role of nicotine, an additive component of cigarette smoke, in tumor angiogenesis.