Leadership Team
Assistant Professor of Public Health Sciences and Associate Cancer Center Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of Biomedical Engineering
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The Leadership Team is the organizing body for Center-level planning and decision-making. The group i) monitors progress toward workforce strategy and excellence, ii) reviews intracenter pilot projects, iii) plans annual site visits with NCI staff and the External Advisory Board, and iv) discusses candidate cross-consortium projects in consultation with the NCI.
Data Management
Investigator
The Data Manager is the interface between the MC2 Center Research Coordinating Hub and the specific resource-development activities of the SASCO Center. The data manager i) ensures standards and platforms put forth by the Resource and Data Sharing Working Group are transmitted to the Center, ii) communicates Center-specific challenges with resource sharing to the MC2 Center, and iii) facilitates the timely sharing of data and resources.
Andrea Denton presented an update of the SASCO Data Management effort in November 2023.
In December 2024, Andrea presented a Citation Strategy in Practice seminar.
Andrea led the January 2025 SASCO Seminar, leading a LabArchives primer. You will find her slides, video and follow-up comments HERE.
Intra-Center Pilot Projects
The SASCO Center offers Intra-Center Pilot Projects with cost-matched support from the UVA Comprehensive Cancer Center and UVA Office of the Vice-President for Research. Details on the Intra-Center Pilot Projects are released as an annual Request For Applications.
In its second year (beginning September 1), the Center will support $100,000 of pilot funding to UVA principal investigators. The broad goal of pilot funding is to introduce investigators to cancer systems biology research questions and approaches. While alignment with the theme of oncogenic stress on organelles is preferred, it is not a required component of a successful pilot project application. Pilot funding applicants can propose projects that integrate with existing SASCO themes, or they can propose new cancer systems biology projects. To aid applicants in designing their approach, the overall aims of the SASCO proposal are available upon request. Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact U54 Center MPI Matthew Lazzara with questions and to discuss project alignment.
- RFA will post on InfoReady.
- Applications are not yet being accepted for Year 4 awards.
Year 3 Pilot Projects
Shayn Pierce-Cottler PhD, UVa Department of Biomedical Engineering
- Extracellular vesicles (EVs) from hypoxic endothelial cells as regulators of pancreatic cancer cell EMT
Sepideh Dolatshahi PhD, UVa Department of Biomedical Engineering
- Glycan-mediated interactions linked with tumor cell glycosylation and response in human melanoma
Nathan Swami PhD, UVa Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Correlating biophysical metrics of metastatic pancreatic cancer cells to their nuclear phenotypes
Year 2 Pilot Projects
Shayn Pierce-Cottler PhD, UVa Department of Biomedical Engineering
- Endothelial cell-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) as regulators of pancreatic cell EMT
Lakeshia Taite PhD, UVa Department of Chemical Engineering
- A Tunable Hydrogel Tumor Microenvironment to Refine Computational Modeling of EMT-associated YAP/TAZ Mechanotransduction
Year 1 Pilot Projects
Stephanie Redemann PhD, UVa Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, Cell Biology
- Regulation of the Chromosomal Passenger Complex (CPC) amount on the level of individual chromosomes during mitosis
Ahmad Jomaa PhD, UVa Department of Physiology and Biological Physics
- Mechanism of Tom34-mediated mitochondrial adaptation in colorectal cancer
