The faculty in GI/Liver Pathology are moving the field forward through a variety of research programs, ranging from basic science to clinical translation. Scroll down to learn more about the innovative research in our department!
Tumor Immunology
Robert Anders, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Robert Anders currently focuses his research program on tumor immunology. He traces this shift to a day in 2009 when he sat down at his microscope to look at a biopsy from the first human patient treated in an anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor phase 1 toxicity trial. He was shocked to see the tissue overrun with lymphocytes – this was the beginning of immune based anti-cancer therapy and would develop into a massive success for many cancer types. His research currently interrogates cancer samples with sophisticated multi-color antibody-based detection system in order to uncover predictive biomarkers, those that determine the best personalized anti-cancer therapy. Many clinical trials are now set up to deliver immune based anti-cancer therapy prior to surgical resection, opening up the possibility to investigate the tumor samples by multiple investigators and protein, RNA, and DNA based assays.
Gene Editing
James Eshleman, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. James Eshleman’s laboratory is focused on the hypothesis that the gene editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 can be adapted as a sequence-specific cancer cell killing tool. Specifically, if multiple cancer-specific (somatic) mutations are targeted at the same time, gene editing could overwhelm the ability of the cell to repair all the double strand breaks. His group discovered that most cancers contain hundreds of such mutations, indicating that this approach could be applied to a broad range of tumor types.
Gastrointestinal Health Disparities
Janielle Maynard, Ph.D.
Dr. Janielle Maynard investigates the immunobiological factors that contribute to cancer health disparities and disease aggressiveness. She uses molecular pathology techniques to characterize the inflammatory landscape of cancer tissues from patients with varied genetic ancestry, including cytokines, immune cells, and inflammation-associated P2 purinergic receptors. Dr. Maynard is committed to generating the tools necessary to characterize the molecular and genetic factors associated with GI cancer health disparities. As such, she coordinates the GI Health Disparities Working Group, which is comprised of a diverse team of experts at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Pancreatic Cancer
Laura Wood, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Laura Wood leads a translational research laboratory focused on pancreatic neoplasia and was awarded the Ramzi S. Cotran Young Investigator Award from the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology. Her group used multi-region sequencing approaches to highlight important evolutionary features in initiation and progression of pancreatic precancers. In addition, they developed a three-dimensional organoid culture model of human pancreatic neoplasms, which they deployed to culture normal duct and precancer in vitro and to determine the molecular and cellular drivers of invasion in pancreatic cancer cells. Her group also developed techniques to analyze human pancreatic tissue in three dimensions, enabling 3D analysis of venous invasion in pancreatic cancer, the critical moment when pancreatic cancer cells gain the ability to metastasize. Her group is currently building a pipeline for 3D multi-omic analysis of human pancreatic tissue specimens to interrogate key clinically important transitions in pancreatic tumorigenesis.
Michael Goggins, M.B.B.Ch., M.D.
Dr. Michael Goggins directs the Pancreatic Cancer Early Detection Research Laboratory and is the principal investigator of the multicenter Cancer of the Pancreas Screening-5, or “CAPS5” study, supported by the National Cancer Institute through the Pancreatic Cancer Detection Consortium. The CAPS5 team recently reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that patients who develop pancreatic cancer while under surveillance are most often diagnosed with Stage I disease and the majority of these patients achieve long-term survival. This is a major step forward in implementing pancreatic cancer screening in high-risk patients.
Nicholas Roberts, Ph.D., Vet.M.B.
Dr. Nicholas Roberts leads a research program focused on understanding the genetic and biological basis of pancreatic cancer risk to advance patient care through improved risk assessment, clinical surveillance, and personalized therapy. To achieve this goal, the Roberts lab uses their deep expertise in DNA-sequencing, RNA-sequencing, functional assays to aid variant classification, and experimental models of pancreatic cancer and precursor lesions. Selected recent research highlights include determining the prevalence of inherited disease-causing variants in patients with intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms, identifying increased survival in pancreatic cancer patients with an inherited disease-causing variant in the ATM, and characterizing the functional impact inherited CDKN2A variants to determine disease risk in patients with familial pancreatic cancer.
Colorectal Cancer
Tatianna Larman, M.D.
Dr. Tatianna (Tasha) Larman investigates microenvironmental contributors to the normal-neoplastic transition in colorectal cancer. The vision of Dr. Larman’s research program is to leverage insights from clinical GI pathology to dissect mechanisms of sporadic and colitis-associated colorectal cancer initiation, as well as mediators of colonic mucosal homeostasis. Her lab leverages patient-derived human intestinal organoids (3D mini-guts) as a powerful tool to model disease-relevant phenotypes. Ongoing projects relate to how colonic epithelium adapts to sustained perturbations to the microenvironmental niche, such as altered growth factor dependencies, chronic injury/repair, and hypoxia, and investigating how these adaptations synergize with genetic drivers to create a cancer-permissive state. The Larman lab also collaborates with other groups on campus, including projects focused on early onset colorectal cancer, lymphocytic colitis, and nucleolar biology across disease states.
Gastrointestinal Pathology
Kevan Salimian, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Kevan Salimian has broad-ranging research interests in the field of gastrointestinal pathology. His work in diagnostic GI pathology has focused on establishing diagnostic criteria for Barrett Esophagus and on refining criteria for diagnosing dysplasia in esophageal and gastric biopsies. He has initiated numerous collaborations with gastroenterologists and surgeons in academia and industry to develop novel animal models that mimic sequalae of Crohn’s disease (fistulas and strictures) with the goal of advancing novel therapeutics. He also works closely with gastroenterology colleagues to develop advanced endoscopy techniques to prevent and cure obesity.
Jacqueline Birkness-Garman, M.D.
Dr. Jacqueline Birkness-Gartman’s research centers around diagnosis of non-neoplastic and neoplastic diseases of the upper gastrointestinal tract, including eosinophilic esophagitis, radiation gastritis, and esophageal neuroendocrine neoplasms. She is also collaborating with clinical colleagues to investigate the tumor immune microenvironment of rectal cancers, with the goal of better understanding which patients will respond to neoadjuvant treatment. Dr. Birkness-Gartman is interested in improving pathology resident education, and recently collaborated with Dr. Kevan Salimian and Dr. Lysandra Voltaggio to study the use of online learning modules for teaching introductory gastrointestinal pathology concepts.