Pancreatic Transdisciplinary Cancer Team

group of people standing together in a hallway with some holding purple star balloons

The goal of the Pancreatic Transdisciplinary Cancer Team is to bring expertise from different disciplines in basic and clinical research to advance our understanding of pancreatic cancer and to translate that information to clinical trials to improve patient care in South Carolina.

The team consists of members with expertise in basic biology, oncology, pathology, surgery, population science, pharmacology, engineering, and informatics and biostatistics.

Co-Leaders

Denis Guttridge headshot 

Denis Guttridge, Ph.D.

Dr. David Mahvi

David Mahvi, M.D.

Team Members

Hollings Members

Tim Barnoud, Ph.D.
Hazel Breland, Ph.D.
Toros Dincman, M.D., Ph.D.
Nathan Dolloff, Ph.D.
Richard Drake, Ph.D.
Marvella Ford, Ph.D.
Saverio Gentile, Ph.D.
Mark Hamann, Ph.D.
William G. Hawkins, M.D.
Aaron Hobbs, Ph.D.
Brenda Hoffman, M.D.

Nancy Klauber-DeMore, M.D.
Craig Lockhart, M.D.
David Marshall, M.D.
John O’Bryan, Ph.D.
Besim Ogretmen, Ph.D.
Michael Ostrowski, Ph.D.
Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D.
Kevin K. Roggin, M.D.
Martin Romeo, Ph.D.
Graham Warren, M.D., Ph.D.
Ozlem Yilmaz, D.D.S., Ph.D.

Non-Member Faculty

Badih Joseph Elmunzer, M.D.
Erin Forster, M.D.
David Lewin, M.D.
Robert Moran, M.D.
Katherine Morgan, M.D.

Daniel Reuben, M.D.
Reeder Robinson, Ph.D.
Sudarshana Sharma, Ph.D.
David Wang, M.D., Ph.D.
Hongjun Wang, Ph.D.

Trainees

Lucas Bialousow
Rachel Burge
Xiaoyan Chen, Ph.D.
Ben Christopher
Lu Han, Ph.D.
George Hanna
Nour Hijazi
Lillian Hsu, M.D.
Joseph Karam
Caroline Kittrell
Katie Marelia, Ph.D.
Dian Mayasari, Ph.D.
Megan Mazzei
Spencer Miller, Ph.D.

Moubashir Mintoo, Ph.D.
Roushney Mukti
Rakesh Nair, Ph.D.
Benjamin Pryce, Ph.D.
Colleen Quaas, Ph.D.
Krishna Ramajayam, Ph.D.
Lety Reyes
Ulyss (Karl) Roesner
Samaneh Saberikashani, Ph.D.
Devadoss Samuvel, Ph.D.
Kamala Sundararaj, Ph.D.
Nadia St. Thomas
Arash Velayati, M.D.

Patient Advocate

Jane Talbot

Staff

Elizabeth O’Quinn

2023 Presentation Schedule

February 21

“KRas Targeted Therapies for Pancreatic Cancer”

Aaron Hobbs, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
MUSC

John P. O'Bryan, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
MUSC

March 21

“Optimizing a Model of Pancreatic Cancer to Enhance the Human Phenotype of Metastasis and Cachexia”

Victoria Spadafora
Graduate Student (Guttridge Lab)
MUSC

April 18

“New Biotherapeutic Strategies to Stimulate Anti-PDAC Immune Responses”

Nate Dolloff, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
MUSC

May 16

“Pten-Stat3 Autoregulatory Loop Modulates the Immune Microenvironment in Pancreatic Cancer”

Sameneh Saberi, Ph.D.
Postdoc (Ostrowski Lab)
MUSC

June 20

“Secreted Frizzled Related-Protein 2 is Prognostic for Human Pancreatic Cancer Survival and Associated with Fibrosis”

Julie B. Siegel, M.D.
Surgical Resident (Klauber-DeMore Lab)
MUSC

July 18

“Using scRNA Sequencing to Reassess the Role of Muscle Progenitor Cells in Cancer Cachexia”

Spencer Miller, Ph.D.
Postdoc (Guttridge Lab)
MUSC

August 15

“Update in Pancreatic Cancer Clinical Trials”

Craig Lockhart, M.D.
Division Chief, Division of Hematology and Oncology
MUSC

September 19

“The KRAS Crowd Targets its Next Cancer Mutations: Revolution Medicines Finally Enter the Game”

Aaron Hobbs, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
MUSC

October 17

“Highlights from the 2023 AACR Pancreatic Cancer Conference: Boston, MA”

Trainee Presenters: Lu Han, Ph.D., Benjamin Christopher, Samaneh Saberikashani, Ph.D., and Ivo Woogeng, Ph.D.
MUSC

November 14

“Discovering New Vulnerabilities in RAS using Novel Biologics”

John P. O’Bryan, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
MUSC

November 17

Talbot Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Reception Keynote Lecture

“Targeting the Tumor Microenvironment to Enhance Response to Immunotherapy”

David DeNardo, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Medicine
Washington University

December 12

“KRASG12R Pancreatic Cancer is Reliant on KRAS-independent PI3K Signaling and PTEN Inactivation”

Rachel Burge
Graduate Student (Hobbs Lab)
MUSC

January 18

“Investigating the role of ceramides in muscle wasting in pancreatic cancer-induced cachexia”

Victoria Spadafora
Ph.D. Student (Guttridge Lab)
MUSC

February 15

“Novel insights into therapeutic targeting of KRAS: conventional wisdom is not always right!”

John P. O'Bryan, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
MUSC

March 15

Joint meeting with Colon TCT: “Novartis GI pipeline presentation”

April 19

“New biotherapeutics for the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma”

Nate Dolloff, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
MUSC

May 17

“The Stat3/Pten Axis in the PDAC macroenvironment”

Mike Ostrowski, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
MUSC

June 21

“Locoregional treatments for inoperable pancreatic cancer”

Thor Johnson, M.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Radiology and Radiological Science
MUSC

July 19

“KRASG12R allele-specific metabolic reprogramming alters therapeutic sensitivity”

Aaron Hobbs, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
MUSC

August 16

“New resources: organoids and orthotopic models for PDAC”

Aaron Hobbs, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
MUSC

David Wang, M.D., Ph.D.
Research Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics
MUSC

September 20

“Origin and heterogeneity of pancreatic cancer associated fibroblasts”

Lu Han, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow (Ostrowski Lab)
MUSC

October 18

“Progress toward the total synthesis of Aleutianamine: a highly potent and selective inhibitor of pancreatic cancer cells in vitro”

Scott Wyer
Ph.D. Student (Hamann Lab)
MUSC

November 15

“Defining the KRAS mutant specific interactome in pancreatic cancer”

Rachel Burge
Ph.D. Student (Hobbs Lab)
MUSC

December 13

“Update on GI clinical trials: current studies and future directions”

William Lancaster, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery
MUSC