Meet the PLOS ONE Cancer and Oncology Authors

February 4, 2020 PLOS Author Spotlight

Today is World Cancer Day — a day for raising the voices of cancer survivors, loved ones, and the people who are working endlessly to find solutions. This year’s theme is “I am and I will:” a recognition of the power each individual has to make an impact.

Each year, PLOS ONE publishes more than 1000 new research articles in cancer and oncology from authors who have dedicated their careers to studying this disease. In celebration of this years’ theme, we’re sharing their stories which inspired the science we use to understand and fight this disease.

Meet the researchers…

“My research group is mainly focused on the study of lung and pancreatic cancers, which are associated with high morbidity and mortality rates, worldwide. We use high throughput methods to identify new biomarkers and regulatory pathways and functional assays to improve our understanding of disease biology.

Our ultimate goal is to improve patient survival, through better diagnosis, prognosis and treatment.”

— Patricia Pintor dos Reis, Faculty of Medicine, São Paulo State University – UNESP Botucatu, SP, BRAZIL.

MicroRNA modulated networks of adaptive and innate immune response in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Tainara F. Felix, Rainer M. Lopez Lapa, Márcio de Carvalho, Natália Bertoni, Tomas Tokar, Rogério A. Oliveira, et al

“Bioinformatics is my tool and cancer research is my subject. My dad and many other people died of cancer and I want to uncover what causes cancer. And I love math and computers, which attracted me to become a bioinformatician. Now I am working for NCI initiative Ras program at Frederick National Lab for Cancer Research, which tries to tackle the most critical and ancient gene in cancer biology: Ras genes.

My last paper on PLOS ONE is about common pitfalls often seen in the survival analysis in the field. We wish to first alert researchers about the pitfalls when they perform survival analysis and to provided a novel method that shall help avoid the pitfalls.

The curiosity in biology and the desire to make life better drives my career in science.”

— Ming Yi, NCI RAS Initiative, Cancer Research Technology Program, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MD, United States of America

GradientScanSurv—An exhaustive association test method for gene expression data with censored survival outcome. Ming Yi, Ruoqing Zhu, Robert M. Stephens

“The goal of my research is to develop an agent that promotes apoptosis in cancer cells but not in normal cells. To accomplish this goal, I explored different protein targets and pathways that included but are not limited to matrix type-I metalloprotease I (MT1-MMP), tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), and oxidative stress.

I believe that the results and proposed future strategies will help to design potent and safe cancer treatments.”

— Dmitri Rozanov, Department of Molecular and Medical Genetics, Knight Cancer Institute, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon, United States of America

Targeting mitochondria in cancer therapy could provide a basis for the selective anti-cancer activity. Dmitri Rozanov, Anton Cheltsov, Aaron Nilsen, Christopher Boniface, Isaac Forquer, et al

“I focus on H&N/Skull base cancers and mechanisms of treatment resistance within HPV positive and negative cancers. Understanding mechanism of treatment resistance will enable us to target new pathways for improving patient outcomes.

It is a privilege to work with folks and help the individual patient, but just as important is work on research that can possibly help the many.”

— Dukagjin Blakaj, The James Cancer Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, United States of America

Association of an intact E2 gene with higher HPV viral load, higher viral oncogene expression, and improved clinical outcome in HPV16 positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Nicole V. Anayannis, Nicolas F. Schlecht, Miriam Ben-Dayan, Richard V. Smith, Thomas J. Belbin, et al

“My particular area of research is the staging of colon cancer, it is important because colon cancer is a top 3 killer (of all cancer types) and we need new treatment strategies. However without accurate staging (i.e. determining how advanced the tumor is), it is nearly impossible to develop these new strategies.

My goal is to increase this accuracy, or at least shed light on how accurate our current staging is.”

— Elias Nerad, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam The Netherlands.

The Apparent Diffusion Coefficient (ADC) is a useful biomarker in predicting metastatic colon cancer using the ADC-value of the primary tumor. Elias Nerad, Andrea Delli Pizzi, Doenja M. J. Lambregts, Monique Maas, Sharan Wadhwani, et al

“I have always wanted to understand the incredible organization of brain functions and how to cure patients with brain lesions. My research field focuses on brain anatomy, brain functions, neuroimaging and how all these aspects together can improve the treatment of patients with cerebral tumors. My work tried to change the standard topographical classification of brain tumors to a model including more detailed information regarding the tumor infiltration along the white matter fibers.

This model perfectly fits the open access principle because it is not based on expensive technology, rather on a basic idea merging anatomy neuroimaging and oncology. I believe that anyone in the world can reproduce this classification method with standard MRI pictures contributing to a more extensive and shared knowledge in this field.

I want to fully understand the interaction between brain structures and brain tumors to better cure my patients.”

— Francesco Latini, Department of Neuroscience, Neurosurgery, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

A novel radiological classification system for cerebral gliomas: The Brain-Grid. Francesco Latini, Markus Fahlström, Shala G. Berntsson, Elna-Marie Larsson, Anja Smits, Mats Ryttlefors