Sanaz Memarzadeh, MD, PhD

The goal at the G.O. Discovery Laboratory is to improve the way we treat patients with gynecologic cancers. As part of this goal, they are looking for effective and better tolerated therapies for these diseases, including ovarian cancer and endometrial cancers.

Explore unique cell types in ovarian and endometrial cancers causing relapse of disease and chemo resistance. 

Despite standard treatments ovarian and endometrial cancers can recur. With recurrent disease tumors may be more resistant to chemotherapy. The GO Discovery Lab works to understand and characterize the unique tumor cell types that may be responsible for recurrence of disease. Characterizing these cells can unlock unique vulnerabilities to be exploited in therapeutic targeting and eradication of these cells.

High throughput drug screening and testing drug combinations using disease in a dish model to overcome ovarian cancer platinum resistance. 

Beyond identification of therapy resistant tumor cells, the GO Discovery Lab is exploring novel treatments alone and in combination with chemotherapy for targeting these tumor cells. They utilize high throughput drug screening assays with tumor organoid models. To achieve these goals, they have developed physiologically relevant disease models called patient derived xenografts (PDXs). Discovering and testing novel therapeutics using these strategies can help provide alternative therapies for treating patients.

Targeting therapy resistant ovarian cancers with cell-based immunotherapies using novel off the shelf immune cells such as iNKT and super charge NK cells.

Another way the GO Discovery Lab works towards targeting therapy resistant ovarian cancers is through cell-based immunotherapies. With their collaborators, they strive to test the efficacy of novel off-the-shelf immune cells in targeting ovarian or endometrial tumors and the immunosuppressive microenvironment that surrounds these cells. They hope to test the efficacy of these treatments in future clinical trials.

Defining the cellular lineage and therapeutic targets in ovarian and uterine carcinosarcomas. 

The GO Discovery Lab also focuses on better understanding ovarian and uterine carcinosarcomas which tend to have an aggressive clinical behavior. They are working to characterize actionable therapeutic targets within this gynecologic cancer subtype. They are utilizing their pre-clinical models to explore novel therapeutics to reduce disease burden for patients impacted with this disease.

Li YR, Ochoa CJ, Zhu Y, Kramer A, Wilson M, Fang Y, Chen Y, Singh T, Di Bernardo G, Zhu E, Lee D, Moatamed NA, Bando J, Zhou JJ, Memarzadeh S, Yang L. Profiling ovarian cancer tumor and microenvironment during disease progression for cell-based immunotherapy design. iScience. 2023 Sep 19;26(10):107952. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107952. PMID: 37810241; PMCID: PMC10558812.

Singh T, Neal AS, Moatamed NA, Memarzadeh S. Exploring the Potential of Drug Response Assays for Precision Medicine in Ovarian Cancer. Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Dec 30;22(1):305. doi: 10.3390/ijms22010305. PMID: 33396714; PMCID: PMC7794771.

Gilbert L, Oaknin A, Matulonis UA, Mantia-Smaldone GM, Lim PC, Castro CM, Provencher D, Memarzadeh S, Method M, Wang J, Moore KN, O'Malley DM. Safety and efficacy of mirvetuximab soravtansine, a folate receptor alpha (FRα)-targeting antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), in combination with bevacizumab in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. Gynecol Oncol. 2023 Mar;170:241-247. doi: 10.1016/j.ygyno.2023.01.020. Epub 2023 Feb 1. PMID: 36736157.

Kaur K, Sanghu J, Memarzadeh S, Jewett A. Exploring the Potential of Natural Killer Cell Based Immunotherapy in Targeting High-Grade Serous Ovarian Carcinomas. Vaccines (Basel). 2024 Jun 18;12(6):677. doi: 10.3390/vaccines12060677. PMID: 38932405; PMCID: PMC11209217.

Lai TS, Francoeur A, Manrriquez E, Venkat P, Chang A, Douek M, Bahrami S, Raman SS, Memarzadeh S. Percutaneous interstitial brachytherapy ablation for targeting oligometastatic gynecologic cancers. Brachytherapy. 2024 May-Jun;23(3):266-273. doi: 10.1016/j.brachy.2023.12.007. Epub 2024 Mar 6. PMID: 38453533.