Member Biography

Recent years have seen incredible advances in personalized diagnostics and therapeutics for solid tumors, yet head and neck cancers still lag behind in clinical use of molecular-based markers for diagnosis, surveillance, and treatment. We still approach head and neck cancers largely by subsite of origin, despite dramatic differences in tumor biology and resultant clinical course and treatment-related side effects. Additionally, the latest explosion of immunotherapeutics still have not substantially improved durable survival rates for many head and neck cancers, although early studies have shown exceptional responders. Markedly different courses are seen for tumors that are virally-mediated, between tissues of origin (e.g. cutaneous vs. mucosal), sex, and other factors. Such data suggest that biomarkers may predict the immunoreactivity of tumors for more precise application of therapies, as well as reveal combinatorial/sequenced treatments that can sensitize cancers to other therapeutics. My long-term research interests are to advance our ability to harness clinicopathologic and molecular profiles to rationally select and monitor therapeutic strategies for individuals with head and neck cancer. I am currently assisting in the development of two investigator-initiated trials – one Phase II Trial that will leverage a ctDNA assay combined with pathologic data to de-escalate adjuvant therapy for indeterminate risk HPV-mediated oropharyngeal cancers managed with upfront surgery, and another Phase II Trial that assesses response to induction therapy for highly aggressive but resectable mucosal head and neck squamous cell carcinomas to predict biology and rationalize treatment plans. We are also looking retrospectively at our transplant population that suffers from repeated cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas that can be life-threatening, to determine whether an FDA-approved gene expression assay can better predict recurrences and thus guide more aggressive upfront or adjuvant treatment. Other endeavors include the development of a patient-reported outcome data management system to identify if symptom monitoring changes patient or provider behavior and to support future multidisciplinary interventional trials for treatment-related toxicities in cancer survivorship. I also serve on several national cooperative groups for head and neck oncology, through which we hope to contribute to studies on computational spatial analysis of the tumor immune microenvironment for improved prognostication for immunologically cold head and neck tumors, as well as application of artificial intelligence and minimum datasets to multi-institutional clinical trials.

Fellowship - The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 2023

Residency - University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 2022

M.D. - Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 2017-2021

Ph.D. - Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN 2015