The Pharmacology and Cancer Biology seminar series “Regulatory Networks in Health and Disease” is held during the academic year. Outside speakers are selected from a pool of nominations made by faculty and trainees.

Date Speaker Institution Title
1.14.26 Sudarshan Rajagopal, MD, PhD Duke University School of Medicine Spatiotemporal Organization of G protein-coupled receptor signaling
1.21.26 Carmen W. Dessauer, PhD McGovern Medical School, UTHealth Houston Spatial Landscape of Adenylyl Cyclase Signaling
2.4.26 Brent R. Stockwell, PhD Columbia University Ferroptosis and metabolism—mechanisms and therapeutic implications
2.11.26 Guang Hu, PhD National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences CRISPR screen identifies novel regulatory mechanisms in germline entry
2.18.26 Katie Houlahan, PhD McMaster University Germline-mediated immunoediting in cancer
3.4.26 Alex K. Shalek, PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology Identifying & Counteracting The Impact Of Environment Stress On Tissue Dysfunction
4.1.26 Samantha Morris, PhD Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School TBA

Date Speaker Institution Title
09.03.25 Xin Gu, PhD Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School Catching transcription factors for proteasomal degradation
10.15.25 Tigist Tamir, PhD UNC School of Medicine Evaluating the convergence of signaling and metabolism in diet induced obesity
10.21.25 Jason Sheltzer, PhD Stanford University Leveraging mischaracterized drugs to uncover new cancer vulnerabilities
10.29.25 Nina Tsvetanova, PhD Duke University School of Medicine Specification of divergent signaling responses by GPCR localization
11.07.25 Gen-Sheng Feng, PhD UC San Diego Deciphering the Anti-oncogenic Effect of Oncoproteins
11.12.25 Adam Palmer, PhD UNC School of Medicine The impact of patient heterogeneity and treatment sequence in combination cancer therapy
12.3.25 Chad Pecot, MD UNC School of Medicine New Frontiers in RNA Structure and Therapeutics to Combat Cancer

Date Speaker Institution Title
01.15.25 Anders Sejr Hansen, PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dynamics of 3D Genome Structure and Function
01.22.25 Jamie Spangler, PhD Johns Hopkins University Reprogramming the immune response through molecular engineering
01.29.25

Daniel Dominguez, PhD

 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Protein Disorder and RNA Binding

*co-sponsored by the
Duke Center for RNA Biology
02.05.25 Chris Chidley, PhD Duke University Using genetic screens to understand nutrient transport and metabolism in cancer
02.12.25 Matthew Vander Heiden, MD, PhD Massachusetts Institute of Technology How understanding metabolism has informed cancer biology
02.19.25 N/A N/A No seminar
02.26.25 N/A N/A No seminar
03.05.25 Ben Stanger, MD, PhD University of Pennsylvania Immune-based therapy for pancreas cancer: How do we thread the needle?
03.12.25 N/A N/A Spring Recess
03.19.25 Ana Gomes, PhD Moffitt Cancer Center Understanding Cancer Through the Lens of Aging
03.26.25 Alexandra Newton, PhD University of California, San Diego Protein Kinase C Unbalanced: Dysregulated Signaling in Cancer vs Alzheimer’s Disease
04.02.25 Ioannis Zervantonakis, PhD University of Pittsburgh Tumor-macrophage interactions in 3D microenvironments
04.09.25 Alana Welm, PhD The University of Utah Modeling metastatic breast cancer to advance therapeutic strategies
04.16.25 James Nuñez, PhD University of California, Berkeley Rewriting the human epigenome with CRISPR
04.23.25 Edmond M. Chan, MD Columbia University Irving Medical Center Exploiting dysregulated ribosome homeostasis for cancer therapy
04.30.25 Lulu Ang Cambronne, PhD The University of Texas at Austin Localized Real-time Sensors for Metabolic Signaling

Date Speaker Institution Title
9.11.24 Kris Wood, PhD Duke University

Mechanism-based dependencies arising during tumor evolution
9.25.24 David Cobrinik, MD, PhD Children's Hospital Los Angeles
Keck School of Medicine, USC		 Retinoblastoma Initiation and Progression
10.9.24 Matthew Meyerson, MD, PhD Dana Farber Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School
Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT		 Lung cancer: genomics and genome-inspired cancer therapeutics.
10.16.24 Alicia Darnell, PhD Duke University Metabolic control of protein synthesis by ribosome fall‐off
10.23.24 Melanie Cobb, PhD UT Southwestern Medical Center Catching a few good WNKs
10.30.24 Carson Thoreen, PhD Yale School of Medicine Motifs and mechanisms for mTORC1 regulation of mRNA translation and stability
11.6.24 Andrew Xiao, PhD Yale School of Medicine Epigenetic lessons from evolution, embryogenesis and cancer
11.13.24 Wu-Min Deng, PhD Tulane School of Medicine Tumor Initiation and Sex-Dimorphic Tumor Growth
11.20.24 Andrew Stergachis, MD, PhD University of Washington Haplotype-resolved view of normal and pathogenic gene regulation
12.4.24 Alexander "Sandy" Borowsky, MD UC Davis School of Medicine

Getting back to basic mechanisms to tackle major problems in breast disease.

Date Speaker Institution
1.17.2024 Agnel Sfeir, PhD MSKCC
1.24.2024 - 3.6.2024 Faculty Search Candidates  
3.13.2024 Duke Spring Break - No Seminar  
3.20.2024 Minna Roh-Johnson, PhD University of Utah
3.27.2024 Matthew Hangauer, PhD UCSD
4.3.2024 Andre Nussenzweig, PhD National Cancer Institute
4.10.2024 Goutham Narla, MD, PhD University of Michigan

Date Speaker Institution
9.13.2023 Gina DeNicola, PhD Moffitt Cancer Ctr
9.20.2023 Benjamin Myers, PhD University of Utah
9.27.2023 David MacAlpine, PhD Duke University
10.4.2023 Amy Moran, PhD Oregon Health & Science University
10.11.2023 Chao Lu, PhD Columbia University
10.18.2023 Aaron Hata, MD, PhD Harvard University
10.25.2023 Elizabeth Johnson, PhD Cornell University
11.1.2023 Zhao Zhang (ZZ), PhD Duke University
11.8.2023 Brian Calvi, PhD Indiana University
11.15.2023 Andrea Ventura, MD, PhD MSKCC
11.29.2023 Roberto Zoncu, PhD UC Berkeley
12.6.2023 Roger Greenberg, MD, PhD University of Pennsylvania