Trever Bivona, M.D., Ph.D. (Professor of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and Senior Investigator, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub)

Dr. Trever Bivona is a board-certified medical oncologist with a PhD in cell and molecular biology. He maintains an active academic clinical practice and clinical research program while also leading a basic and translational research laboratory focused on cancer genetics and precision medicine. A major research interest is enhancing the understanding of the molecular basis of targeted cancer therapy response and resistance in lung cancer and other solid cancers. He leads a multi- disciplinary team of investigators in laboratory-based, patient-focused investigation and is a principal investigator on clinical trials, enabling a bench-to-bedside research program. The overall goal of these efforts is to improve survival in molecular subclasses of cancer patients through novel, effective precision medicine approaches.

Publications

Michael L. Cheng

Dr. Michael L. Cheng is an academic medical oncologist and Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he leads clinical and translational research focused on advancing discoveries in cancer genomics and developing improved therapies for thoracic malignancies, especially Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). He received his M.D. from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, where he graduated with Alpha Omega Alpha honors. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at UCSF and his fellowship in Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Publications

Beatrice Gini, Ph.D.

Beatrice is a Ph.D. in Neuroscience with extensive training in brain tumor research. Her current research interests are the dissection of the tumor heterogeneity in lung cancer using single cell technologies and the analysis of the oncogene-addicted cell’s dependence on specific pro-survival factors. The goal of these projects is to foster precision medicine, identifying more effective, patient specific targeted therapies for lung cancer patients.

Publications

WEI WU, PH.D.

Wei Wu received his medical and research training in cancer biology in China, the United States and Canada, and he is actively working in systems and computational cancer biology in gene regulatory networks mediated by protein coding and non-coding transcripts in the mammalian genome. His current research is focused on the landscapes of common and rare somatic mutations and chromosomal structural variations, which are occurring within and between tumors as well as single cell transcriptomic regulation during cancer genome evolution. His goal is to interrogate the cancer genome to find potential "actionable and druggable" small-molecule remedies for cancer treatment.

Publications

Nilanjana Chatterjee, Ph.D.

Nilanjana is a biochemist by training interested in the epigenetic regulation of chromatin and cancer. She believes that science is a service that is rendered for the improvement of human life and for the cure of life threatening diseases.

Publications

Yu-Ting Chou, PH.D.

Yu-Ting is interested in the molecular biology of cancer. She received her Ph.D. at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and revealed the molecular mechanisms of ribose-5-phosphate isomerase A (RPIA) in the formation of colorectal cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. Her current research efforts involve exploring the heterogeneity in lung cancer and understanding how cancer cells rewire signaling to become resistant. The overall goal is to improve target therapy for patients. Besides being a scientist, she is also a nutritionist.

Publications

Philippe Gui, Ph.D.

Following a Master's degree in Pharmacology, Philippe obtained his Doctorate in Cell Biology from the University of Toulouse in 2014. His thesis project was focused on the characterization of the in vivo trans-tissular migration of cancer-promoting macrophages inside solid tumors. He joined the lab in October 2015 to pursue his interest in translational cancer research. Philippe is known for not being able to get free coffee at Café 24.

Publications

Tadashi Manabe, M.D., PH.D.

Tadashi Manabe is a respiratory physician certified by the Japanese Respiratory Society. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Keio University. He is a current Connie and Bob Lurie Fellow of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. His research focuses on translational research on various aspects of metastasis, recurrence, and resistance to lung cancer treatment. His ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life of cancer patients through basic research. Tadashi is also known for getting free coffee at Café 24.

Publications

Aubhishek Zaman, Ph.D.

Aubhishek completed his Ph.D. in 2017 from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW) under Dr. Michael White’s mentorship. In the Bivona lab, Aubhishek is focused on understanding crosstalk between distinct signaling regulatory programs 1) under lung cancer therapy resistance and 2) during establishment of oncogene addiction. He is also interested in understanding heterogeneity of and dynamic alterations in epigenetic landscape during drug resistance. Besides science, his other interests include traveling and reading books.

Publications

Dongwha Kim, Ph.D.

Donghwa obtained her Ph.D. at Seoul National University in South Korea. Her graduate work involved the early drug discovery process for aging and cancer. Her current research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of acquired drug resistance to targeted therapy and developing a combinatorial strategy for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.

Publications

Jovanka gencel-augusto, M.SC., Ph.d.

Jovanka holds a Ph.D. in Genetics and Cancer Biology. During her graduate work, she studied the tumor suppressor TP53 and developed model systems to understand physiologically-relevant functions of p53 mutant proteins. Jovanka is interested in understanding molecular dependencies of cancer cells and elucidating mechanisms by which signaling pathways go awry to promote cancer development, progression, and resistance to therapies. Her career goal is to find novel targetable vulnerabilities in cancers. So far, Jovanka has gotten free coffee at Café 24 just once.

Publications

Lauren Cech (Graduate Student(PSPG))

Lauren is a graduate student in the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics program. Her research interests include inter- and intra-tumoral heterogeneity in lung cancer and multi-dimensional cellular interactions between the tumor, immune compartment, and microenvironment. She is currently exploring thesis project ideas unifying intercellular crosstalk and machine learning principles to better predict treatment-sensitive groups.

Christopher Chen (Graduate Student(PSPG))

Chris obtained his bachelor’s degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a graduate student in the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics Program. His research interests are in cancer therapeutics and drug resistance in lung cancer. Besides science, his other interests include skateboarding and cycling.

Whitney Tamaki (Graduate Student(PSPG))

Whitney is a graduate student in the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics Program. She is interested in studying the crosstalk that occurs in the tumor cell-tumor microenvironment at different cancer response states and downstream aims to identify targets for combination therapy to produce lasting patient responses to lung cancer therapies. On her downtime, she enjoys traveling the country to watch Shohei “Shotime” Ohtani hit homeruns at different MLB ballparks.

Victor Olivas

Victor graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.S. in Bioengineering in 2009. Victor is fascinated with cancer and its ability to overcome primary drug treatment and acquire resistance. He is looking for synergistic upfront polytherapies to offset tumor progression and therapeutic resistance. Victor plans on pursuing a Masters in Public Health to further serve his community in the Bay Area. Victor enjoys salsa dancing and running 5k’s.

Publications

Paul Allegakoen

Paul received his B.S. in Chemical Biology from UC Berkeley and his M.S. in Tumor Biology from Georgetown University. At UCSF, he is continuing his research on cancer biology, with a focus on therapy resistance.

Hannah Bergo

Hannah received her bachelor's degree in microbiology from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2023. She is interested in the interplay between cancer growth and the tumor microenvironment and finds the intricacies of tumor resistance fascinating. Outside of the lab, Hannah enjoys knitting, reading, and talking about gut health & infectious diseases.

Daniel Kerr

Daniel finished his bachelor's degree in Chemical Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, in Spring 2019. During undergrad, Daniel worked in Prof. Niren Murthy's group where he developed electrophilic antibiotic pharmacophores and chemical approaches to intracellular protein delivery. Since moving across the bay, Daniel is now studying tumor heterogeneity and targeted therapy resistance pathways among other topics relevant to non-small cell lung cancer.

Amit Sabnis, M.D. (adjunct asst. Professor)

Amit is an Assistant Professor in the division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology who completed his post-doctoral fellowship in the Bivona lab in 2019, and has since been recruited to lead his own translational research group at UCSF.  The Sabnis lab is investigating selective vulnerabilities in the way cancer cells choose to build, fold, and destroy their constituent proteins.  His group uses patient-derived cell line and xenograft models to test the hypothesis that pediatric sarcomas - a deadly group of connective tissue cancers affecting children and young adults - are "primed" for drugs that disable protein homeostasis pathways.

Publications 

Ross Okimoto, M.D. 

Ross is a medical oncologist at UCSF and his research efforts are focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms of cancer metastasis. The Okimoto lab at UCSF is interested in understanding how cancer cells become addicted to specific transcriptional nodes and developing new therapies to exploit these dependencies. 

Publications

Collin Blakely, M.D., Ph.D.

Collin Blakely MD, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology. He received his training in the Medical Scientist Training Program at UPenn and completed his Medical Oncology fellowship at UCSF. Currently he collaborates with the Bivona lab to translate laboratory based findings into clinical trials testing new therapies for lung cancer patients.

Publications

Evangelos Pazarentzos, Ph.D. (Postdoctoral Scholar)

Evangelos finished his three year tenure in the Bivona lab in 2015. As a member, he engaged in a variety of projects dealing with targeted therapy resistance, utilization of genomics to identify populations that would benefit for therapy and projects to identify new therapeutic targets in oncology. His published work focused on NFKB, cancer metabolism, PTEN, PI3 kinase signaling, AXL kinase, IKK signaling, PDK1 and PKC-iota. Through extensive collaboration with physician scientists, biotech/pharma and genomic/sequencing companies, Evangelos contributed to the generation of a lung cancer target map that is a part of the personalized medicine efforts of our group.

Luping Lin, Ph.D. (Postdoctoral Scholar)

Luping completed her postdoctoral research fellowship at UCSF in 2015. Her research focused on understanding molecular determinants of response and resistance to BRAF and MEK targeted therapies in lung cancer, and other solid cancers. Using genetic and pharmacologic screening approaches, she discovered several mechanisms of resistance to these targeted agents in BRAF mutant  and RAS mutant lung cancer and other other solid cancers. Her work has provided rationale for novel rational upfront polytherapy trials in BRAF mutant and RAS mutant cancer patients to enhance response and forestall the onset of resistance. 

Gorjan Hrustanovic, Ph.d.  (BMS)

Gorjan completed his Ph.D in Biomedical Science in 2015. His research focus explored the molecular pathogenesis of oncogenic ALK-fusions in NSCLC, and using these mechanistic underpinnings to uncover new therapeutic strategies to overcome clinical resistance to ALK inhibitors. He was involved in projects spanning cancer metabolism, resistance to EGFR targeted therapies, cancer metastasis, and RTK-fusion biology generally. His work has been published in Nature Medicine, Cell Reports, Oncogene, and Cancer Biology & Therapy.

Dana Neel, M.D., Ph.D.

Dana completed her MSTP program at UCSF in 2020. In the Bivona lab, her interests included the role of epigenetic regulators in oncogenesis and mechanisms of resistance to targeted therapy in ROS1-fusion driver lung cancer. Dana has returned to her hometown in Boston to complete her residency at the Boston Children’s Hospital. She will miss San Francisco, the wacky, foggy city by the bay. 

BEYOND UCSF

Calvin Kuo, Stanford
Charles Swanton, Francis Crick Institute, London
Christine Lovly, Vanderbilt
David Gandara, UC-Davis
Hatim Husain, UCSD
Jack Roth, MD-Anderson
John Heymach, MD-Anderson
Jonathan Riess, UC-Davis
Keith Flaherty, MGH
Kris Wood, Duke
Martin McMahon, Huntsman Cancer Institute
Michael Rosen, UTSW
Michael Snyder, Stanford
Rafael Rosell, Catalan Institute of Oncology, Barcelona
Robert Doebele, University of Colorado
Rueben Harris, University of Minnesota
Ryan Corcoran, MGH
S. Ignatius Ou, UC-Irvine
Spyros Darmanis, Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub

UCSF

Alan Ashworth
Asmin Tulpule
Bill Weiss
Bo Huang
Caroline McCoach
Collin Blakely
Eric Collisson
Hani Goodarzi
James Fraser
James Wells
Jonathan Weissman
Kevan Shokat
Kevin Shannon
Nevan Krogan
Peter Walter
Sourav Bandyopadhyay
Wendell Lim
Xiaokun Sun
Yuri Kurchok
Zena Werb