Tuesday, May 10, 2022

Five medical school graduates receive scholarship named for late classmate

Christiana Hoff and Harold Thomas, parents of the late Samantha Thomas, receive her hood posthumously at the USA College of Medicine Academic Hooding Ceremony.
The USA College of Medicine announced the first recipients of a scholarship named in honor of Samantha Thomas, a member of the Class of 2022 who was killed in a car crash almost two years ago at age 24.

Samantha Thomas
Graduating medical students Zachary Aggen, Paige Farley, Michelle Nguyen, Catherine Taylor and Melody Zeidan each received a $1,000 Samantha Alison Thomas Memorial Scholarship. To be eligible for the scholarship, medical students must be U.S. citizens, rank in the top 25% of their class and demonstrate financial need.

As the 76 members of the Class of 2022 received their academic hoods on Thursday, May 5, Thomas’ green and black hood, lined in red, white and blue, was presented posthumously to her parents, Harold Thomas and Christiana Hoff. The family established the scholarship endowment in 2021.

John V. Marymont, M.D., M.B.A., vice president for medical affairs and dean of the USA College of Medicine, announced at the ceremony that the college would contribute $125,000 toward the scholarship endowment fund and that future donations would be matched dollar for dollar, for a total contribution of up to $250,000.

Thomas, a native of Guntersville, died in a car crash in Mobile on August 1, 2020. She was remembered by her classmates as a ray of sunshine, a beautiful spirit with an ever-present smile, a brilliant mind with compassion to match, a nonjudgmental and supportive friend, and a strong young woman who overcame hardships and persevered in life. While at the USA College of Medicine, she served on the Honor Council and as secretary of the Anesthesiology Interest Group.

To make a gift to support the Samantha Alison Thomas Memorial Scholarship Endowment, visit giving.usahealthsystem.com/sthomas.

Research seminar series to address prostate cancer

Zongbing You, M.D., Ph.D., professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Structural & Cellular Biology at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, is May's guest speaker for the Department of Pathology's Research Seminar Series.  

He will present "Interleukin-17 and Prostate Cancer" at noon on Thursday, May 19, in the Strada Patient Care Center conference room. Lunch will be served. 

A major focus of You's research is to understand the role of inflammation in cancer initiation, promotion and progression. His target molecule in inflammation is interleukin-17, a key cytokine in many inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. 

For more information, contact Patrick Carlisle at 251-471-7753 or pcarlisle@health.southalabama.edu.


Monday, May 9, 2022

Meet a Ph.D. Student: Marlo Thompson

Marlo Thompson

Age: 28

Hometown: Hampton Roads, Virginia

Undergraduate/graduate institutions and degrees earned: B.S in biology from the University of Virginia; M.S in biology from Old Dominion University

BMS Program track and year of study: Third year in Cancer Biology

What research are you involved in?
My research focuses on DNA repair proteins, specifically the DNA glycosylase NEIL1.

What do you enjoy most about being a doctoral student at the USA College of Medicine? I have gotten to meet many people I never would have otherwise (like fellow Ph.D. student Amanda Tuckey).

What are your interests and hobbies outside of school and work?
I foster dogs on and off with a foster-based rescue in Mobile called Wags and Whiskers. To add to that chaos, I have three dogs and two cats of my own. I am also a member of the CrossFit Mobile gym. It has been a great place for me to relieve stress and maintain my mental health. The whole community is so accepting, and it has quickly become my favorite place to be. When we have the time, my husband and I are big into board games. A couple of my favorites include Betrayal (at House on the Hill), Mysterium, Sagrata and Gloomhaven.




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.