By IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center
Dec. 3, 2024
Remembering Karen Liby, PhD
The IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center community is remembering Karen Liby, PhD, a renowned cancer researcher who died Nov. 15, 2024, after a brief cancer journey.
Liby joined the cancer center in 2023 as the Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Professor of Hematology-Oncology and professor of medicine and pharmacology and toxicology at IU School of Medicine. She was an integral member of the cancer center, the Experimental and Developmental Therapeutics research program, and the Lung Cancer Working Group. Liby was a scientist and researcher everyone relied on for her honest and supportive input.
In her more than 20 years of research, Liby focused on finding drug and treatment combinations that can reprogram the immune cells driving cancer growth. Liby held nine patents (with two pending) related to preventing malignant and benign tumors in a variety of disorders.
“The world will remember Dr. Liby as an exceptionally brilliant scientist whose breakthroughs fundamentally improved many people's lives,” Kelvin Lee, MD, cancer center director, wrote in a tribute. “Her IU family will remember Karen as a wonderful colleague, friend, and mentor. We will remember Karen for her warmth, sense of humor, quiet confidence, and enthusiasm for everything she did. She made everything brighter.”
According to her colleagues, Liby cared deeply about her graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and other trainees and instilled in them her passion for science and desire to help others through her research. Liby’s research spanned cancer prevention, development, and treatment. Her dedication to research was exemplified by her tireless efforts in serving the scientific community locally, nationally, and internationally on panels and committees.
Liby received her PhD in cell and molecular biology from the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and completed postdoctoral training at Dartmouth Medical School, where she also joined the faculty. She was also on faculty at Michigan State University’s Department of Pharmacology & Toxicology, where she continued as adjunct professor.
The results of her research studies were published in journals such as Cancers, Cancer Research, Cancer Letters, Scientific Reports, Clinical Cancer Research, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, npj Breast Cancer, and Theranostics; her reviews have been published in Nature Reviews Cancer and Pharmacological Reviews.
