Fiscal Year 2025 Awardees
Research is a cornerstone of UT MD Anderson¡¯s quest to end cancer. The Excellence in Science program is the online showcase for the Wall of Science, our quarterly program for honoring outstanding primary research selected from among publications in top journals by UT MD Anderson¡¯s world-renowned scientists.
Quarter 1 (September¨CNovember 2024)
Sangeeta Goswami
Associate Professor
Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology
John Heymach and Ferdinandos Skoulidis
Professor and Chair, Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology
David Bruton, Jr. Chair
Associate Professor
Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology
CTLA4 blockade abrogates KEAP1/STK11-related resistance to PD-(L)1 inhibitors
Nicholas Navin
Normal breast tissues harbour rare populations of aneuploid epithelial cells
Chair and Professor
Systems Biology
The Grady F. Saunders, Ph.D. Distinguished Professorship for Molecular Biology
Kanwal Raghav
Kanwal Pratap Singh Raghav, M.B.B.S.
Associate Professor
GI Medical Oncology
Clinical Medical Director, Ambulatory Treatment Center
Katy Rezvani
Sally Cooper Murray Chair in Cancer Research
Chief, Section of Cell Therapy
Medical Director GMP and Cell Therapy Facility
Professor, Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy
Ferdinandos Skoulidis
Associate Professor
Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology
Chad Tang
Addition of Metastasis-Directed Therapy to Systemic Therapy for Oligometastatic Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (EXTEND): A Multicenter, Randomized Phase II Trial
Associate Professor
Radiation Oncology and Investigational Cancer Therapeutics
Peter Van Loo
Professor
Genetics
Quarter 2 (December 2024¨CFebruary 2025)
Xi Chen
Associate Professor
Experimental Therapeutics
IRE1a silences dsRNA to prevent taxane-induced pyroptosis in triple-negative breast cancer
Ronald DePinho
Professor
Cancer Biology and Genomic Medicine Research
Harry Graves Burkhart III Distinguished University Chair in Cancer Research
Yejing Ge
Assistant Professor
Cancer Biology
Stem cell activity-coupled suppression of endogenous retrovirus governs adult tissue regeneration
Scott Kopetz
Encorafenib, cetuximab and chemotherapy in BRAF-mutant colorectal cancer: a randomized phase 3 trial
Professor, GI Medical Oncology
Del and Dennis McCarthy Distinguished Professorship in Gastrointestinal Cancer Research
Quarter 3 (March¨CMay 2025)
Luigi Perelli, Li Zhang and Giannicola Genovese
Assistant Professor
Cancer Biology
Li Zhang
Postdoctoral Fellow
Genitourinary Medical Oncology
Associate Professor
Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Genomic Medicine Research
Evolutionary fingerprints of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition
Benjamin Schrank, Yifan Wang, Betty Kim and Wen Jiang
Assistant Professor
Radiation Oncology
Yifan Wang
Postdoctoral Fellow
Radiation Oncology
Professor
Neurosurgery
Associate Professor
Radiation Oncology
Hongqi Teng and Li Ma
Hongqi Teng
Postdoctoral Fellow
Experimental Radiation Oncology
Professor
Experimental Radiation Oncology
In vivo CRISPR activation screen identifies acyl-CoA-binding protein as a driver of bone metastasis
Quarter 4 (June¨CAugust 2025)
Erez Baruch, Frederico Gleber-Netto, Jing Wang, Moran Amit, Neil Gross and Priyadharsini Nagarajan
Assistant Professor
Melanoma Medical Oncology
Head and Neck Surgery
Professor
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
Assistant Professor
Head & Neck Surgery
Professor
Head and Neck Surgery
Associate Professor
Anatomical Pathology
Cancer-induced nerve injury promotes resistance to anti-PD-1 therapy
Boyi Gan, Guang Lei and Steven H. Lin
Professor
Experimental Radiation Oncology and Molecular and Cellular Oncology
N.G. and Helen T. Hawkins Distinguished Professorship for Cancer Research
Guang Lei, M.D., Ph.D.
Instructor
Professor
Radiation Oncology
Rui Ye, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
Systems Biology
Amir Jazaeri, Anne Knisely, Linghua Wang, Rugang Zhang, Yano Mitsutake and Yibo Dai
David M. Gershenson Distinguished Professorship in Ovarian Cancer Research
Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine
Anne Knisely, M.D.
Fellow
Gynecologic Oncology
Associate Professor
Genomic Medicine
The John M. O'Quinn Endowed Chair in Cancer Research
Department Chair
Experimental Therapeutics
Mitsutake Yano, M.D., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow.
Yibo Dai
Graduate student
PPP2R1A mutations portend improved survival after cancer immunotherapy
Scott Kopetz
Professor, GI Medical Oncology
Del and Dennis McCarthy Distinguished Professorship in Gastrointestinal Cancer Research
Hind Rafei and Katy Rezvani
Sally Cooper Murray Chair in Cancer Research
Chief, Section of Cell Therapy
Medical Director GMP and Cell Therapy Facility
Professor, Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy
Assistant Professor
Hematopoietic Biology and Malignancy
CREM is a regulatory checkpoint of CAR and IL-15 signalling in NK cells
Koichi Takahashi
Associate Professor
Leukemia and Genomic Medicine