Jason R. Pitarresi. Father. Studying pancreatic cancer, cellular plasticity/metastasis, and tumor-host interactions. @pitarresilab.bsky.social
Joined February 2021
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I'm excited to share the lab’s new paper on PDAC-associated cachexia on bioRxiv today, led by star postdoc @Nikita2106
Pancreatic cancer cachexia is mediated by PTHrP-driven disruption of adipose de novo lipogenesis
A 🧵 below, if you're interested...
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
PitarresiPhD retweeted
🏆
Lawrence Kazak (@kazaklab), of @mcgillu, is awarded an Arthur B. McDonald Fellowship in recognition of his findings that reshaped the fundamental understanding of how the body expends energy.
▶️ tinyurl.com/5n7mdxe4
ALT IMAGE: Portrait of Lawrence Kazak.
Congrats Nada and the rest of the team!
Ever wondered what happens #Metabolically throughout the body when the presence of #Cancer results in life-threatening debilitating loss of #Muscle and #Fat in patients, decreasing their quality of life, and preventing them from receiving therapy they need to extend #Survival?
Another successful @UMassChan Cancer Center Retreat in the books!
Congrats to Paula Vo for winning a best poster award and Calvin Johnson for being selected for a talk!
An absolutely beautiful study in Nature Cancer by the Chio lab on a novel mechanism of adipose tissue wasting in pancreatic cancer.
Congrats to Christine, first author Jung Seung Nam, and the rest of the @Chiolaboratory!
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Happy to see our recent paper from @linzhou0515 online at @CR_AACR. Here we tested a panel of senescence-inducing therapies with different MoAs to uncover their unique SASP profiles and impact on immunity, and from that design effective senolytic approaches to block metastasis.
Now online: Senolytic Interventions Enhance the Anti-metastatic Activity of Chemotherapy in Prostate Cancer doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.CA…
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Quantitative in vivo flux analysis reveals tumor and host lipogenic remodeling in KRAS-driven lung cancer
link.springer.com/article/10…
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Excited to see our work published in @ScienceAdvances! 🎉
Very grateful to Gina DeNicola (@LabDeNicola) and all our coauthors who made this work possible.
🔗 science.org/doi/10.1126/scia…
Fantastic work Marcus and team!
New paper out in @cellpressblue ! We found that reintroducing refined starch after weight loss activates the innate immune system through the complement pathway, while sugar has the opposite effect. With @eze_dantas , @davidludwigmd , CaraEbbeling, @CantleyLab , and team. 🧵
I am very grateful to @NIH staff for their support and efforts in helping us secure this R56 award from the NCI
I'm especially appreciative of my PO for championing our work on a novel driver of pancreatic cancer metastasis that has revealed exciting therapeutic vulnerabilities!
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Important changes coming to how @NIH reports scores on reviewed grants - while individual reviewers will still provide an overall impact score, the investigators will only receive information on which of three broader categories their grant falls under:
grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/…
Congrats to Nikita Bhalerao in the lab on being promoted to Instructor @UMassChan last month!
She is entering the academic job market this year and will come with her own funding (Early K99/R00). Search committees, be on the lookout for this stellar candidate.
Congrats Nikita!
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Congrats to @ChaitanyaParik on his innovative and impactful work in the lab! Be on a look out for this rising star and his company, ImmunoScript, in the biotech space! Hope to see this therapy in patients one day.
A potentially transformative mRNA immunotherapy developed at @UMassChan eliminated pancreatic cancer tumors in 50 percent of treated mice models. Read about the research, published in @NatureComms: bit.ly/4g7Y30z
#PancreaticCancer @ChaitanyaParik @Marcus_Ruscetti @theNCI
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Neural niches are recurrent features of human cancer that may relay signals to nearby cells, to the immune system, + to the brain. So what’s in these niches, and what happens when cancer cells barge in? We take a look under the hood in our new preprint 1/ biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
It was a pleasure to host Tanushree in the lab as part of the Summer Undergrad Research Program (SURP) at UMass Chan. She worked with Nikita in the lab on sexual dimorphism in cachexia. Can't wait to see what you accomplish next!
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Thrilled to see our work on senescence & metastasis out! We found that chemotherapy increases ovarian cancer metastasis in a paracrine manner via fructose. Dietary fructose is sufficient to increase metastatis. This work has multiple implications related to both chemo and diet.
Online now!✨Cole et al identify fructose as a component of the therapy-induced SASP in senescent ovarian cancer cells and show that it reprograms cancer cells in paracrine, promoting detachment and metastasis @airdlab nature.com/articles/s43587-0…
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Our paper is out today in @NatureComms. @ChaitanyaParik developed an all-in-one cytokine and antigen mRNA therapy that can produce pancreatic cancer cures in 50% of mice! Excited to take this technology into patients with our company ImmunoScript.
nature.com/articles/s41467-0…
PitarresiPhD retweeted
NSF announced a $47 million investment to expand industry R&D opportunities for Ph.D.s in #STEM. The pilot initiative, led by @teamuidp, in partnership with universities & industry, will support four-year Ph.D. programs with real-world research placements. brnw.ch/21x4woE
PitarresiPhD retweeted
⚠️ Abstracts due by July 24th!
FREE virtual 2026 Cancer Metabolism Showcase & Workshop — September 8–9
✅ Short talks & poster sessions
✅ Career panels & workshops
✅ Career Keynote from Ralph DeBerardinis
📝 Submit & register: cancermetabolismshowcase.org…
Please share!
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Pathway to Independence Award recipient Nikita Bhalerao, PhD, aims to find earlier interventions for patients with cancer cachexia, a cancer-associated syndrome characterized by uncontrollable weight loss that occurs in up to 80 percent of pancreatic cancer patients. #PancreaticCancer @PitarresiLab
ALT Postdoctoral fellow Nikita Bhalerao, PhD
PitarresiPhD retweeted
Fine work as usual by the Lim lab. Congratulations
Drs Bansod, Lim and team. Blockade of Tumor TAK1 Induces DNA Damage and Immunogenic cGAS-STING Pathway. @SitemanCenter @WashUOncology sciencedirect.com/science/ar…
