Research Newsletter - March 2025

March 2025 news briefs

Call for Cancer Research Day abstracts

Cancer Research Day, the cancer center’s signature research event, will be held Thursday, May 8. Registration is now open. The deadline to submit an abstract is 5 p.m. Monday, April 7.

Submit an abstract

CD3A joins national consortium

The Cancer Drug Discovery & Development Accelerator (CD3A) is now a member of the Academic Drug Discovery Consortium (aD2c). Co-led by Mark Kelley, PhD, and Chafiq Hamdouchi, PhD, the CD3A’s goal is to accelerate drug discovery and development by bringing together university researchers, experienced pharmaceutical industry veterans, technology cores, and external research organizations. Similarly, the aD2c connects academic drug discovery labs with companies, universities, and government agencies to advance new therapies.

Leadership transitions

Karen Pollok, PhD, has been named our new associate director of basic science research, and Tim Lautenschlaeger, MD, is our new associate director of clinical research.

Pollok succeeds Mark Kelley, PhD, who is now our senior leader for biomedical innovation and partnerships. In this newly created role, Kelley will further develop cancer center initiatives to increase patents and licensing of inventions, discoveries, and innovations. He will enhance entrepreneurship and commercialization opportunities by linking his new role along with his role as co-leader of the Cancer Drug Discovery and Development Accelerator.

Lautenschlaeger succeeds Kathy Miller, MD, as associate director of clinical research.

Because of Lautenschlaeger’s new role, the cancer center is currently looking for a medical director for CTO. The medical director is responsible for overseeing and coordinating all activities of the Adult Clinical Trials Office. Applications are due March 15. Explore the job description.

Also, Jiang Bian, PhD, recently started as our chief information officer. He’s performing similar roles at Regenstrief, IU School of Medicine and IU Health. Learn more.

New flow cytometry leaders

In the flow cytometry core, Maegan Capitano, PhD, has been named the scientific director and James Ropa, PhD, has been named associate director. They succeed Baohua Zhou, PhD, who most recently served as the core’s director.

NCCN Notes

The NCCN Annual Conference will be held March 28-30 in Orlando, Florida. Paul M. Haste, MD, and Anita Turk, MD, are presenting a conference session on hepatocellular carcinoma on March 29. Learn more and register for the conference.

Member headlines and highlights

Nasser Hanna, MD (EDT), earned the top honor in the physician category for the Indianapolis Business Journal's Excellence in Health Care awards program. Read the IBJ profile.

Rohan Maniar, MD (EDT), discusses with OncLive the next step in immunotherapies for thymoma and thymic carcinoma. Read the Q&A.

Misty Shields, MD, PhD (EDT), talks to OncLive about the management of limited-stage small cell lung cancer and further research of the disease. Read more.