CENTER FOR CANCER SYSTEMS BIOLOGY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor ( Research ) of Pathology, of Medicine ( BMIR ) and, by Courtesy, of Biomedical Data Science
Job Titles:
- Clinical Research Associate
- Clinical Research Associate, Cardiothoracic Surgery Department
Job Titles:
- Professor of Pathology / Education
Job Titles:
- Research Data Analyst
- Research Data Analyst, Med / BMIR
Job Titles:
- Program Manager
- and Plevritis Lab Program Manager Manager
- Program Manager / James H. Clark Center
Job Titles:
- Professor of Pathology and of Medicine ( Immunology and Rheumatology )
His subsequent research reprogramming tumor-resident immunosuppressive myeloid cells into immunostimulatory cells that present tumor antigens to host T cells, is now in clinical trials for the treatment of multiple cancers. In addition to cancer, Dr. Engleman studies the role of immune cells in neurodegenerative diseases, metabolic diseases, and organ transplant rejection. His work with Stanford colleagues led to a therapy that targets lymphoid tissues with low doses of radiation to induce alloantigen-specific immune tolerance, enabling transplant recipients to retain their allografts without requiring immunosuppressive drugs. This therapy is now in a multicenter clinical trial for kidney transplantation. Dr. Engleman has supervised more than 150 research trainees, authored 300 scientific articles, and has been an editor of multiple scientific journals. He also teaches a popular course on tumor immunology at Stanford.
Dr. Sunwoo was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island and his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He completed his training in Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery at Washington University. Dr. Sunwoo has been at Stanford University since 2008, and his clinical focus is on the surgical management of head and neck cancer, specifically focusing on melanoma and neoplasms of the thyroid and parathyroid glands. He is a member of the Pigmented Lesions and Melanoma Clinic and the Melanoma Working Group at Stanford. He is also the co-founder of the Stanford Thyroid and Parathyroid Tumor Board.
In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Sunwoo is the Director of Head and Neck Cancer Research at Stanford University and the principal investigator of an NIH-funded laboratory in the Stanford Cancer Institute. His research is focused on three primary areas: (1) the immune response to cancer, particularly a tumorigenic population of cells within malignancies called cancer stem cells; (2) the biology and developmental programs of a special lymphocyte population involved in innate immunity called natural killer (NK) cells; and (3) intra-tumor and inter-tumor heterogeneity in head and neck cancer.
Education
Residency: Washington University School Of Medicine Registrar (2003) MO
Medical Education: Washington University School Of Medicine Registrar (1993) MO
Postdoc Research Fellowship, Washington University, Immunology (2008)
Board Certification: American Board of Otolaryngology, Otolaryngology (2004)
Fellowship: National Institutes of Health (2000) MD
Job Titles:
- Biospecimen and Data Core Co - Lead
- Professor of Otolaryngology
Joseph Shrager, MD, is Professor of Otolaryngology (Head and Neck Surgery) and Chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at Stanford. He is a clinical and translational scientist working mainly in the areas of lung cancer and diaphragm/skeletal muscle atrophy. His research first described the clinical syndrome of ventilator-associated diaphragm atrophy and dysfunction in 2007, and his group has since uncovered the molecular mechanisms underlying this problem. Dr. Shrager's laboratory's long-term focus is on responses of the respiratory muscles to various disease states and interventions, recently expanding into lung cancer-related translational laboratory work. He identified sensitive available method for quantitating circulating tumor DNA and identifying lung cancer driver mutations. Dr. Shrager maintains a busy practice in pulmonary surgery and has published 175 original research articles, editorials, chapters, and reviews on both clinical and laboratory topics. His research has been published in top-tier journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, and The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He is a member of the editorial board of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery and many other prestigious academic surgical societies.
Dr. Shrager has been identified as one of "America's Top Doctors" and one of "America's Top Doctors for Cancer." for multiple years running. Dr. Shrager has been awarded US News and World Report "Top Doctor" recognition in every year since that rating system was inaugurated in 2012; this award places him among the top 1% of thoracic surgeons nationwide based upon reviews by physician-peers.
Job Titles:
- Biospecimen and Data Core Co - Investigator
- Clinical Assistant Professor of Pathology
Dr. Ozawa is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pathology with subspecialty focus in Cytopathology, Head and Neck pathology, and Thoracic pathology. He completed his M.D., Ph.D. training at the McGovern Medical School and the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX. He then completed residency training in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology followed by fellowship training in Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology at Stanford University. He is board certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology as well as Cytopathology. His interests include pulmonary neoplasms as well as neoplasms of the Head and Neck. He also has developed collaborative research interests in utilizing fine needle aspiration (FNA) techniques in the growing clinical application of Chimeric Antigen T Cell (CAR-T) therapy.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor ( Research ), Department of Radiology
Job Titles:
- Basic Life Research Scientist
Sylvia Plevritis, PhD, is the William M. Hume Professor in the School of Medicine, Professor of Biomedical Data Science and of Radiology, and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Data Science. She is a thought leader at the intersection of data science and biomedical research. She is an electrical engineer by training, whose scholarship in artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) has elevated the fields of cancer systems biology and cancer population science. Her interdisciplinary research program is anchored in the desire to develop patient-specific cancer interventions for early detection, diagnosis, and treatment, through an understanding of cancer as a dynamic, whole-body disease. Dr. Plevritis uses novel AI/ML analytical tools on datasets that characterize primary human tumors and tissues where cancer has spread. These studies combine information from clinical records, radiology and pathology images, and molecular assays. Currently, she is pioneering the development and use of AI/ML-guided spatial biology, a transformative new frontier that enables a more comprehensive view of human cancer as it changes through the interactions of among all the cells within tumor microneighborhoods, including interactions of malignant cells with immune and stromal cells. Her lab has been among the first to generate human cancer tissue maps as tumors evolve. Dr. Plevritis' work is anchored by cancer simulation modeling that guides national cancer control guidelines for reducing mortality from breast and lung cancers.