Dr. Buj's zinc manuscript is on bioRxiv! Check out her amazing work on immunotherapy resistance of CDKN2A-low cancers

Congratulations to Research Assistant Professor Dr. Raquel Buj for submitting her amazing story on the role of zinc in modifying tumor-associated macrophages to influence immunotherapy resistance in CDKN2A-low cancers! This has been a long journey, but her passion, dedication, and brilliance got her to the finish line. We are looking forward to getting feedback! Read the preprint here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.08.637227v2

Congrats to postdoc Dr. Amandine Amalric for receiving funding from the HERA Ovarian Cancer Foundation!

A huge congrats to postdoc Amandine who just received an Outside-the-Box grant from the HERA Ovarian Cancer Foundation! With this award, Amandine will study the potential role of metabolites in driving chemoresistance in ovarian cancer.

Undergrad Richard Fang highlighted in Pittwire!

We are very proud of Richard Fang who was featured in a Pittwire write-up. He will be graduating soon to go onto bigger and better things (an MD/PhD program)!

Read the story here: Richard Fang Pittwire

Richard Fang successfully defends his B. Phil!

Congratulations to Richard who successfully defended his B. Phil this week! This is a special thesis that undergraduates in the Pitt Honors College can write and then get to defend. A cool program! No surprise Richard passed with flying colors- he’s amazing. We will miss him when he graduates later this semester.

Amazing grant news for the whole lab with multiple fundable R01 scores + Raquel's SPORE CEP funded!

What a few months the lab has had! Not one but TWO R01s received fundable scores, including a 1st percentile mPI grant between Katherine, Raquel, and our colleague Dr. Nadine Hempel,

Raquel also received funding for her new ovarian cancer project through the Pitt SPORE Career Enhancement Program!

Needless to say, we are hiring! Check out our projects and email us if you are interested in joining the team.

Katherine wins Mentoring Award

Katherine is humbled by the nomination from her team for an outstanding mentoring award. Below is a picture of the lab after accepting the award at the 2024 HCC retreat.

Naveen's and Raquel's paper on de novo purine metabolism as a vulnerability of p16low cancers is out!

Congratulations to co-first authors Drs. Naveen Kumar Tangudu and Raquel Buj for this very nice study on a metabolic vulnerability in p16low cancers. Using multiple CRISPR screens and omics-based approaches, they identified de novo purine synthesis to be upregulated in p16low cancer cells. They also found that targeting this axis using anti-folates decreased proliferation of these cells both in vitro and in vivo. You can read the full text here: https://aacrjournals.org/cancerrescommun/article/doi/10.1158/2767-9764.CRC-23-0450/743061/De-novo-purine-metabolism-is-a-metabolic

Richard Fang is a Goldwater Scholar Awardee!

Congratulations to undergraduate research Richard for being awarded a Goldwater Scholarship! He is mentored by postdoc Dr. Naveen Kumar Tangudu in the lab and is working on his undergrad thesis, which is interrogating ferroptosis in ovarian cancer.

New preprint on alpha-ketoglutarate and histone acetylation- congrats Dr. Apoorva Uboveja and co-authors

We are excited to share our newest preprint from 1st author Dr. Apoorva Uboveja. In this project, she found something totally unexpected- aKG affects histone acetylation through carnitine synthesis. This axis promoted DNA repair by homologous recombination. These data provide new evidence for a metabolically-sensitive epigenetic axis that could be targeted for cancer therapy. They also show that methylation is not the only epigenetic change that is affected by aKG. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.02.06.578742v1

Naveen's DoD Pilot Award recommended for funding!

Congratulations to postdoc Dr. Naveen Kumar Tangudu whose DoD Pilot Award was recommended for funding! This will further his exciting work on ferroptosis and iron metabolism as a vulnerability of CCNE1-driven ovarian cancer!

Apoorva's HERA Ovarian Cancer grant funded!

Congratulations to postdoc Dr. Apoorva Uboveja whose Outside the Box grant for the HERA Ovarian Cancer Foundation was recently funded! This will further her exciting work on carnitine metabolism in ovarian cancer and DNA damage response.

New preprint alert! First authors Naveen and Raquel identify anti-folates as a strategy to treat cancers with p16 loss

Congrats to co-first authors Drs. Naveen Kumar Tangudu and Raquel Buj on their new preprint. Using CRISPR screens and pharmacological approaches, they identified purine metabolism as a metabolic vulnerability of p16-low cancers. Read more here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.15.549149v2

New postdoc Dr. Amadine Amalric joins the lab!

A warm welcome to Dr. Amadine Amalric, who joined the lab in early June. She comes to us from France where she studied RNA modifications in cancer. In the lab, she will studying compartmentalized metabolism and is co-mentored by our long-term collaborator Dr. Nate Snyder at Temple University.

Allison's WCRC grant funded!

Congratulations to Allison- her Magee Women’s Cancer Research Center grant to study metabolism in ovarian cancer quiescence was funded!

Aidan is now a PhD Candidate!

Big congrats to Aidan for passing his comprehensive exam this week and becoming a PhD candidate! We had a fun donut celebration!

Dr. Buj is promoted to Research Assistant Professor!

Congratulations to Raquel for her well-deserved promotion to Research Assistant Professor! Raquel has independently moved an entire arm of the lab’s research program forward by becoming an expert in the tumor microenvironment.

Congratulations to Aidan for receiving funding through the Pharmacology T32!

Congrats to Aidan- the very first proposal he wrote was funding through a spot on the highly competitive Pharmacology T32! Next up- submitting his F31!

Congratulations to Dr. Apoorva Uboveja for being named a Hillman Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovative Research!

A huge congratulations to Apoorva who was named this week as a Hillman Postdoc Fellow for Innovative Research! This will provide professional development support as she works toward her K99 application.

Macropinocytosis paper published in Journal of Cell Biology!

Out now! The lab’s paper on how ATM inhibition induces macropinocytosis to promote survival through uptake of nutrients. Congrats to all authors!

Read the paper here: https://rupress.org/jcb/article-abstract/222/1/e202007026/213697/ATM-inhibition-drives-metabolic-adaptation-via?redirectedFrom=fulltext

Congratulations Dr. Apoorva Uboveja for being awarded an OCRA Mentored Investigator Grant!

Big congrats to Dr. Uboveja- this is her first grant! A huge milestone! This award will allow her to continue her very exciting work on wildtype IDH1 in cyclin E-driven ovarian cancer.