One of the most heartbreaking things a parent can hear is “Your child has an aggressive, malignant brain tumor.” When that is followed up with the physician saying there is no effective cure, parents are left devastated. This is what motivates Dr. Sriram Venneti and his research laboratory to dedicate their all to finding a cure. Venneti focuses on Group 3 medulloblastomas, which are very aggressive pediatric brain tumors with no known cure.

The Keys to Dr. Analisa DiFeo's Success

In the Department of Pathology, we have scholars at all levels working in our laboratories. One of these, undergraduate Harini Ram, was recently recognized as the recipient of the 2025 Astronaut Scholarship, the only one to receive this scholarship from the University of Michigan this year, and only the 18^th in the history of this award. According to the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, this award is presented to students in their junior or senior year of college who are pursuing a STEM field (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) with the intention of conducting research or advancing their field upon completion of their final degree. These scholars represent the “best and brightest minds in STEM who show initiative, creativity, and excellence in their chosen field,” reports the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

On Thursday, March 20^th, the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute presented its Rising Scholars Lecture with pathology’s Dr. Abhijit Parolia, assistant professor of experimental pathology, entitled NSD2 is a requisite subunit of the AR/FOXA1 neo-enhanceosome in promoting prostate tumorigenesis. Rising Scholar lectures showcase NCI-supported early career researchers with outstanding research findings.

Personalized medicine utilizes an individual’s genetic and genomic make up to treat and prevent diseases. The promise of personalized medicine continues to grow as new scientific discoveries uncover previously unknown features and drug sensitivities for tumors. In a recent study, Dr. Aaron Udager, associate professor of genitourinary pathology and co-director of our PSTP program, was co-senior author on a publication with Dr. Sofia Merajver, professor of epidemiology and internal medicine and the director of the breast and ovarian cancer risk evaluation program. 

Researchers at the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center have uncovered a key reason why a typically normal protein goes awry and fuels cancer.

They found the protein NSD2 alters the function of the androgen receptor, an important regulator of normal prostate development. When androgen receptor binds with NSD2, it causes rapid cell division and growth leading to prostate cancer. The study, published in Nature Genetics, may suggest a new way to therapeutically target prostate cancer. The findings illuminate a phenomenon not previously understood.

Dr. Rohit Mehra, Professor and member of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology (MCTP), and his international team of collaborators were recently recognized by the Asian Journal of Urology for the best paper published in their journal in 2023. This award-winning study is a literature overview of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma (ChRCC), the third most common RCC subtype.

A study from the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center furthers research that suggests the potential of developing new cancer treatments to target oncogenic transcription factors by indirectly affecting their ability to access enhancer DNA in chromatin. 

The findings appear in Cancer Cell.

Led by Arul Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D., S.P. Hicks Professor of Pathology and director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology at Michigan Medicine, the research builds on previous work to find genetic vulnerabilities to treat transcription factor-driven cancers like prostate cancer.

To understand why some cancers successfully circumvent the immune system to grow unchecked, researchers turned to pregnancy.

“In pregnancy, the immune system does not reject the growing fetus, so we know there must be mechanisms active in the placenta. In cancer, it’s the same thing: the growing tumor is not rejected by the immune system. It means the cancer cells have developed strategies to suppress immune rejection, same as in pregnancy,” said Weiping Zou, M.D., Ph.D., professor of experimental pathology.

It’s a good thing in pregnancy – it allows the baby to grow. But in cancer, it means the tumor grows unchecked and treatments meant to stimulate an immune response are not effective.

Department of Pathology faculty member, Analisa DiFeo, PhD, has been named a 2024 Rogel Scholar by Michigan Medicine. The award supports exceptional faculty dedicated to achieving impact on cancer prevention, patient outcomes, and quality of life. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Analisa DiFeo on this prestigious award!

Dr. Matthew Iyer's Transformation from Programmer to Pioneering Cancer Researcher

The Division of Anatomic Pathology in the Michigan Medicine Department of Pathology offers grant funding for faculty and trainees to pursue research interests related to anatomic pathology that may not otherwise be funded. One of these internal AP grant-funded projects, led by first-author Eman Abdulfatah, MD and senior-author Rohit Mehra, MD, resulted in a recent cover story in Human Pathology entitled “Extragonadal germ cell tumors: A clinicopathologic study with emphasis on molecular features, clinical outcomes and associated secondary malignancies.”

In a manuscript published this week in JAMA Oncology, senior author Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan and members of the EDRN-PCA3 Study Group reported on their development and validation of a new 18-gene urine-based test for diagnosis of high-grade prostate cancer, MPS2. This test was initially developed in the Department of Pathology. 

University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center researcher Arul Chinnaiyan, MD, PhD, has received a $5 million grant from the J.C. Kennedy Foundation to conduct laboratory tests of a potential drug candidate targeting a master regulator that controls the majority of genes involved in the most challenging type of prostate cancer. The SWI/SNF chromatin remodeling complex was previously found to facilitate access to enhancers that oncogenes can bind to, driving downstream gene expression in cancer. Degrading a subunit of this complex blocks the oncogenes [...]

The American Association for Cancer Research recently released their 2024 Women in Cancer Research Scholar Awards and Rita A. Avelar, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in the DiFeo Laboratory, was one of just twelve women scholars awarded. This award is presented to early-career, meritorious female scientists at the AACR Annual Meeting, which will be held April 5-10, 2024, at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California.

In the world of research and grant funding, it is easy to lose sight of the effort required for foundations to provide funding to researchers and the underlying motivation for that funding. This is not the case, however, for Molecular and Cellular Pathology Graduate Student Joanna Lum. Lum was recently awarded the ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation Fellowship Award, providing her with $200,000 over 3 years to study Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, the deadliest form of pediatric brain cancer. DIPG is a brainstem glioma most commonly affecting children ages 5-9 years old. More than 90% of these children will die within 1.5 years. The DIPG foundation was created by two families who lost their sons to DIPG.

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Dr. Analisa Difeo, PhD drops by The Path Report, to discuss how she became interested in medicine, the work her lab is doing, and more!

Multiple Department of Pathology faculty members have recently been recognized for their achievements and nominated to leadership roles for their excellence within their respective fields. These members continue to demonstrate the depth of our department's knowledge and research.

A study from clinicians and researchers at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, U-M Department of Pathology and the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology reveals findings from over 800 clinical assays performed for kidney patients with MiTF family gene mutations.

Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan, S. P. Hicks Endowed Professor of Pathology and Professor of Urology at Michigan Medicine Department of Pathology and Director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology, was recently recognized for his outstanding achievements by the American Association of Cancer Research. He was presented with the AACR James S. Ewing-Thelma B. Dunn Award for Outstanding Achievement in Pathology in Cancer Research award at the 2023 AACR Annual Meeting. Please join us in congratulating Dr. Arul Chinnaiyan for this well-deserved prestigious honor!

Congratulations to the Department of Pathology faculty who were honored on Thursday, March 16th by the Medical School for being appointed to named professorships in 2022. This included Dr. Ulysses G. J. Balis, Director of Pathology Informatics, who was honored for his appointment as the A. James French Professor in Pathology Informatics, and Dr. Jolanta Grembecka, who was honored for her appointment as the Richard and Susan Rogel Professor in Cancer Therapeutics. Balis and Grembecka were among 51 Medical School faculty members honored [...]

The University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center researchers received one of the Prostate Cancer Foundation’s four inaugural Class of 2022 TACTICAL (Therapy ACceleration To Intercept Cancer Lethality) Award. This $30 million program will support cross-disciplinary pioneering research toward the goal of developing 21st Century therapies for the most life-threatening form of prostate cancer [...]

One of the most fascinating aspects of a career in cancer research is that one never knows when or where the next great discovery will occur. This was true of a recent breakthrough discovery made by the Dr. Russell Ryan laboratory at the University of Michigan Medical School. They were shocked to find that active regulatory elements in B-ALL contained not only typical protein binding sequences but also simple repeats of the sequence “GGAA”, usually considered a form of “junk DNA” with no regulatory function [...]

Members of the University of Michigan Department of Pathology and Michigan Center for Translational Pathology, in collaboration with the Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium, recently published a large study on clear cell renal cell carcinomas (ccRCCs), which represent about 75% of the RCC cases and account for the most RCC-associated deaths. This study set out to create a comprehensive profile of ccRCC, combining histologic and molecular profiles. By analyzing both the microscopic cell structures and the genetic makeup of the cells, these researchers discovered significant intratumoral heterogeneity in 90% of ccRCCs. This indicates that ccRCCs originate from multiple tumor cell lines, called tumor subclones, that may become metastatic and could independently influence response to therapies. Through this study, the team was able to molecularly stratify aggressive histopathic subtypes, which may lead to more effective treatment strategies for patients and improved survival.

A research team from the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology undertook a study to illustrate how careful assessment of cytologic and biomarker features may provide physicians with information on Metastatic Prostatic Cancer (MCP) patients’ prognosis and the best therapies to consider [...]

The Celina Kleer lab at the University of Michigan Department of Pathology and Rogel Cancer Center has found a new mechanism that fuels metastasis in triple negative breast cancers. In their new study they show that EZH2, a master regulator of cell type identity, known to function through methylation of histones, has a new, unexpected function in aggressive breast cancers [...]

Effective July 1, 2022, Dr. Sriram Venneti, Professor of Pathology, was appointed as Scientific Research Director and Dr. Carl Koschmann, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, was appointed as Clinical Research Director for the Chad Carr Pediatric Brain Tumor Center (CC-PBTC).

We recognize Dr. Jolanta Grembecka on being named the inaugural Richard and Susan Rogel Professor of Cancer Therapeutics. An induction ceremony will be held later this year. Please join us in congratulating her on this honor!

A landmark study into quantitative image analysis in ER, PgR, and HER2 in invasive breast carcinoma was recently published in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology. Dr. Mustafa Yousif, Assistant Professor of Breast Pathology and Informatics, and colleagues conducted a retrospective study of 1,367 invasive breast carcinomas of all histopathology subtypes, for which ER, PgR, and HER2 were analyzed by manual scoring [...]

What is skin cancer and how can you prevent it?

The role of artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare continues to expand. In a recent issue of BMC Cancer, Dr. Vipulkumar Dadhania (first author) and colleagues published a result of their study Leveraging artificial intelligence to predict ERG gene fusion status in prostate cancer. The expert team from the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology developed a deep-learning-based model to predict ERG genomic rearrangements in prostatic adenocarcinomas using only H&E-stained digital slides [...]

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Abhijit Parolia on being selected for the 2022 Harold Weintraub Graduate Student Award. The award, established by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is given yearly and recognizes outstanding achievement during graduate studies in the biological sciences [...]

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which also awards the Nobel Prizes, announced today that Arul Chinnaiyan, MD, PhD, S.P. Hicks Professor of Pathology and Urology at Michigan Medicine and Director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology, has been selected as [...]

Research from INHERET was just published in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (JNCCN). Learn more about this study, which analyzes the implementation of InheRET's online tool that provides information about family history as it relates to cancer risks [...]

 A multi-institutional study led by Drs. Alex Taylor, Noah Brown and Rohit Mehra from the Department of Pathology was just published in European Urology's Open Science. Learn more about the resarch, which focuses on how TERT promoter mutations were characterized in urinary tract lesions, which may be considered as precursors to neoplasia at this site [...]

A chromatin degrader stops transcription factors from driving cancer, which may serve as a potential treatment approach for over 90% of prostate cancers.

Research pertaining to Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) and cutaneous neuroendocrine carcinomas was just published in the latest edition of Modern Pathology. Led by the team of Drs. Paul Harms, May Chan, Aaron Udager, Rajiv Patel, and more [...]

Research from experts in the Department of Pathology was published in Europe PMC's Histopathology. The team comprised of Drs. Jiaqi Shi, Laura Lamps and Erika Hissong examined the impact of adenomatoid tumors within the gastrointestinal tract [...]

Dr. Xiao-Ming (Mindy) Wang and colleagues from the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology and Department of Pathology published a groundbreaking finding from an inter-institutional study regarding TRIM63 in Modern Pathology  [...]

Findings offer clues to why some types of renal cell carcinoma respond to immunotherapy while others do not — it’s a scientific riddle tangled up in a complex web. How do you turn an immune cold cancer into one that responds to immunotherapy?

Activity of the polycomb repressive complex 1 is essential for the development and maintenance of leukemic cells; disrupting it presents a new potential therapeutic approach. Leukemia stem cells are rare cells that can renew themselves while continuing to generate malignant cells known as leukemic blasts. These cells are difficult to eradicate using chemotherapy drugs and frequently lead to recurrence of leukemia [...]

Not all kidney cancers behave the same, with wildly different responses to immunotherapy or other treatments – and wildly different outcomes for patients as a result. By sequencing the RNA of individual cells within multiple benign and cancerous kidney tumors, researchers from the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center have identified the cells [...]

A research effort by Drs. Jolanta Grembecka and Tomasz Cierpicki was just published in Nature Communications. Learn more about the protein made by the ASH1L gene, which plays a key role in the development of acute leukemia, along with other diseases [...]

Research from the Department's Lombard Lab was just published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The study, which focuses on how the deacylase SIRT5 compound supports melanoma viability by influencing chromatin dynamics, was led by Dr. Lombard [...]

Stopping the interaction between KRAS and the protein AGO2 slowed tumor growth in mouse models.

Congratulations to Arul Chinnaiyan, MD, PhD, who was announced as the Science of Oncology Award and Lecture recipient by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). As part of this award, Chinnaiyan will present a 30-minute lecture entitled “Exploring Precision Oncology: from Gene Fusions to Related Genetic Drivers“ at the ASCO Annual Meeting, to be held virtually on June 4-8, 2021 [...]

A new publication from the Department of Pathology, led by Dr. Kathleen Cho, was just published in the American Association for Cancer Research's flagship journal. highlights how altering the microbiome within a mouse model of oviductal high-grade serious carcinoma can inhibit tumorigeneis [...]

MiTF renal cell carcinoma can masquerade as other subtypes and may not respond as well to front-line therapies.

A new study, led by U-M graduate in molecular and cellular pathology Dr. Andi Cani, was just published in European Urology Oncology. The publication focuses on the development of a whole-urine, multiplexed, next-generation RNA-sequencing assay that is used for the early detection of aggressive forms of prostate cancer [...]

Dr. Mehra discusses his career path and how he arrived at Michigan Medicine in our latest Careers in Pathology video.

A collaboration between the Department of Pathology and the Department of Dermatology examined biomarkers of outcomes in 346 cases of Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), an aggressive type of skin cancer. The study was published in the recent edition of Clinical Cancer Research [...]

A new publication, generated by Department of Pathology faculty members Drs. Aaron Udager and Scott Tomlins was successfully published in European Urology. The research highlights a longitudinal cohort study centered around the serial molecular profiling of low-grade prostate cancer in order to better assess tumor upgrading [...]

A new study by the University of Michigan's Rogel Cancer Center analyzed patients with cancer and the factors that cause the cancer to spread to the liver, leading to worse outcomes. 

Clinical trials underway are testing whether drugs that target the androgen receptor – successful in controlling prostate cancer – could also work against the coronavirus. wo proteins, ACE2 and TMPRSS2, help the coronavirus gain entry and replicate within cells. TMPRSS2 is well-known to Arul Chinnaiyan, MD, PhD. His lab discovered that TMPRSS2 fuses with the ETS gene to drive more than half of all prostate cancers [...]

A new study led by Drs. Jolanta Grembecka and Tomasz Cierpicki of the Department of Pathology was just published in Blood's American Society of Hematology. The research focuses on combinatorial treatment with menin and FLT3 and how inhibitors induce complete remission in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with activating FLT3 mutations [...]

Congratulations to Dr. Thomas Giordano and the entire Cancer Genome Atlas Project team for winning the American Association of Cancer Research's 2020 Team Science Award [...]

Congratulations to Dr. Celina Kleer who was awarded the American Society for Investigative Pathology (ASIP)'s 2020 Outstanding Investigator Award. Dr. Kleer receives the award for her demonstrated excellence in research in experimental pathology [...]

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Join us for a virtual event featuring the Department of Pathology's Dr. Celina Kleer, who will host a discussion related to her experiences in understanding breast cancer and her journey as a physician-scientist.

Register Now

Structural biology techniques helped researchers target the nuclear receptor-binding SET domain family, whose malfunction is associated with several types of cancer.

Dr. Aaron Udager recently appeared on Michigan Medicine's 3P's of Cancer: Prevention, Preparedness, Progress podcast

The research was just published in Modern Pathology and highlights the importance of next-generation sequencing within oncogenic roles for P53 and JAK/STAT signaling in microcystic adnexal carcinomas.

The protein Argonaute 2 was found to be critical to the progression from benign lesions into pancreatic cancer, suggesting a therapeutic opportunity.

The research was just published in Histopathology and features prominent contributions from our faculty.

Researchers have uncovered the gene signature for ChRCC.

A Phase I clinical trial, using a structurally related analog of the compound, is currently enrolling patients.

U-M researchers are shedding new light with exciting implications for research and health.

Chan Chung, PhD, received two grants in funding from the ChadTough Foundation and Defeat DIPG foundation ($150,000) and the Robert Connor Dawes CERN Pediatric Fellowship ($100,000). [...]

Andi Cani, PhD, successfully defended his thesis entitled “Precision Medicine Approaches to Hormone-Driven Cancer” on December 5, 2019. [...]

The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition (F99/K00) Award supports outstanding PhD and other Research Doctoral candidates who complete their dissertation research training (F99 phase) and transition in a timely manner to mentored, cancer-focused postdoctoral career development research positions (K00 phase). [...]

The American Association for Cancer Research announced that Celina Kleer, MD, the Harold A. Oberman Collegiate Professor of Pathology and Director of the Breast Pathology Program, will be the recipient of the 2019 Outstanding Investigator in Breast Cancer Research, supported by the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Bryan Betz, PhD, was inspired by his late wife, Sharon, to pursue a career in clinical diagnostics.

Speaking directly with a pathologist could help patients better understand their diagnosis and feel empowered, a survey of patient sentiment finds.

Surinder Kumar, Ph.D., has received The Pablove Foundation Childhood Cancer Research Grant for his proposal entitled “The sirtuin SIRT5 as a novel therapeutic target for Ewing’s Sarcoma” [...]

Every year in the United States, nearly 3 million men hear the words, “You have prostate cancer.” That is 1 in 9 men each year.  The word “cancer” triggers an immediate response in most people…fear, worry about family, denial, and often an increased awareness of one’s mortality. [...]

Researchers characterize 3 ways in which the gene FOXA1 mutates to trigger prostate cancer.