Siemann Lab
Current and former members of the Siemann Lab made a total of six presentations at the AACR Annual Meeting in Chicago on April 14 – 18.

John M. Yuhas Award
Congratulations to Dietmar Siemann, Ph.D., on being selected to receive the 2018 John M. Yuhas Award for Excellence in Radiation Oncology from the University of Pennsylvania. He will accept this award and deliver the 2018 John M. Yuhas Lecture on May 17, 2018.

University of Florida Research Foundation (UFRF) Professor
Siemann was also selected as a University of Florida Research Foundation (UFRF) Professor for 2018-2021. Out of the 33 UF faculty members chosen, five were selected from the UF College of Medicine.

Congratulations to all of those who received awards at the 43rd annual Medical Guild-sponsored graduate student research competition and their mentors!

Gold Award Winner

Vindhya Vijay (Cancer Biology)
Mentor: Chris Cogle, M.D.
“Targeting Aberrant mRNA Splicing in Acute Myeloid Leukemia”

Bronze Award Winners

Iqbal Mahmud (Molecular Cell Biology)
Mentor: Daiqing Liao, Ph.D.
“DAXX promotes de novo Lipogenesis in Breast Cancer by Activating Sterol Regulatory Element Binding Proteins (SREBPs)”

Mengxiong (Betty) Wang (Pharmacology & Therapeutics)
Mentor: Brian Law, Ph.D
“A Novel Proteotoxic Combination Therapy for EGFR+ and HER2+ Breast Cancers”

College of Medicine Education Initiative Award Winner

Julie Bray (Cancer)
Mentor: Thomas Schmittgen, Ph.D.

2017-18 Faculty Doctoral Mentoring Award Winner

Rolf Renne, Ph.D. (Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology)

Cogle Team | AACR Achievements

Dr. Cogle’s team gave three presentations at the AACR Annual Meeting in Chicago on April 14 – 18. Graduate student Vindhya Vijay gave an oral presentation about the novel splicing repressor her team discovered with their high throughput screening assay and tool compound. Vindhya also received an AACR Scholar-in-Training award to attend AACR and present this work. 

Dr. Leylah Drusbosky gave two presentations on using genomics and computational biology to bring much-needed precision in caring for cancer patients.

Congratulations to Carmen J. Allegra, M.D., on being featured as a guest in the National Cancer Institute’s Facebook Live video titled “Rectal Cancer: Treatment, Research and Quality of Life.”

Natalie Silver, M.D., was selected for a competitive KL2 Scholar award by the UF Health Cancer Center and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute for her application titled “Remodeling Host Immunity in Human Papillomavirus Positive Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Using Personalized RNA Nanoparticle Vaccines.” Her mentors on the project are Duane Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D.; Thomas George, M.D.,  and Jeffrey Myers, M.D. (MD Anderson Cancer Center). A key collaborator is Elias Sayour M.D., Ph.D.

Congratulations to Jan S. Moreb, M.D., and his collaborators for their recent paper being featured in The ASCO Post.

Congratulations to Mohammad Alzrigat, Ph.D., of the Jonathan Licht Lab, for receiving the AACR-Loxo Oncology Pediatric Cancer Research Fellowship.

Congratulations to Jason Starr, D.O., for being appointed as the NRG Oncology Junior Faculty Co-Chair and Study Champion of the upcoming NCI NCTN SWOG 1815 prospective randomized controlled clinical trial in cholangiocarcinoma.

Congratulations to Hiral Parekh, M.D., M.P.H., for being appointed as the Junior Faculty Co-PI of the FOLFIRINOX control arm of the upcoming Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Precision Promise National Clinical Trial.