CITY OF HOPE announced several appointments to its faculty.
Susanne Warner was named an assistant clinical professor in the department of surgery. In 2010, Warner completed a research fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Following residency, Warner completed a clinical fellowship in hepatopancreatobiliary and advanced gastrointestinal surgery at the University of Michigan Medical Center, where she was also a clinical lecturer. Her research interests include clinical applications of oncolytic viral therapies, and humanities research centered on the spiritual, emotional, and physical optimization of the perioperative patient experience.
Ling Li joined as an assistant professor in Gehr Family Center for Leukemia Research and Division of Hematopoietic Stem Cell and Leukemia Research. Li’s research focuses on studying the aberrantly regulated epigenetics that initiate or maintain acute myeloid leukemia. Li was the first to report aberrant activity of SIRT1 leads to deacetylation and therefore suppression of p53-signaling contributing to survival of leukemia stem cells. His laboratory is currently determining the epigenetic-related resistance mechanisms of LSC to the treatment of tyrosine kinase inhibitors. The primary goal of this effort is to develop novel therapeutics to specifically target LSC and advance these strategies for clinical trials in AML.
Edwin Manuel joined the Department of Experimental Therapeutics as an assistant professor. Manuel’s current research focuses on approaches to overcome mechanisms of tumor escape, which can compromise the efficacy of immunotherapeutic strategies. One major contributor to tumor escape is the over-expression of tumor-derived proteins that cause significant immune suppression. Manuel has developed a bacterial-based approach that effectively targets a variety of immunosuppressive proteins to rescue anti-tumor responses in preclinical models of melanoma and pancreatic cancer.
Irina Chilian was named associate clinical professor in the department of medical specialists, specializing in neurology. Chilian joins City of Hope after being in private practice for 13 years, and serving as a consultant to City of Hope since 2012. In 2002, Dr. Chilian completed a clinical neurophysiology fellowship from USC’s Keck School of Medicine/VA Medical Center.
