University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI)

Leadership

Preet Chaudhary, MD, PhD

Preet Chaudhary, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, and Director for Translational Research and Co-Leader of the Hematologic Malignancies and Cancer Stem Cell Programs at UPCI. After graduating from medical school, Dr. Chaudhary obtained his PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago followed by residency training in Internal Medicine at the Northwestern University in Chicago and fellowship training in Medical Oncology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington, Seattle. Dr. Chaudhary pioneered the field of drug resistance pumps in stem cells. He was the first to demonstrate that pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells express high level of P-glycoprotein, the product of human Multidrug Resistance 1 (MDR1) gene, which provided an explanation for the lack of staining of hematopoietic stem cells with fluorescent dyes that are substrates for P-glycorpotein-mediated drug efflux and provided the framework for future studies examining the expression of other drug efflux pumps in normal and cancer stem cells. In addition, this study provided a molecular explanation for the resistance of normal and cancer stem cells to anticancer drugs. Dr. Chaudhary has authored or co-authored more than 50 scientific publications and book chapters and holds six U.S. patents. His research is funded by grants from the NIH, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation. He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigations (ASCI) and serves on the NIH Developmental Therapeutics study section. Dr. Chaudhary has been the recipient of numerous honors, fellowships, and awards from national and international research organizations including the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Cancer Research Fund of the Damon-Runyon Walter-Winchell Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Leukemia Research Foundation, March of Dimes Foundation, Childhood Cancer Foundation, and the Nearburg Family Foundation.

Department website: http://bmg.mgb.pitt.edu/faculty.asp?ID=152

Tao Cheng, MD

Tao Cheng, MD, is an Associate Professor of Radiation Oncology with tenure at the University of Pittsburgh. He is a Co-Leader of the Cancer Stem Cell Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. He also holds a professorship at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College. Dr. Cheng received his medical degrees from the Second Military Medical University in Shanghai, China. After completing his graduate study, he did his residency in internal Medicine and clinical fellowship in Hematology at Changhai Hospital, Shanghai, China. He subsequently received his postdoctoral research training at the Hipple Cancer Research Center, Dayton, Ohio and Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. He became an Instructor in Medicine in 1998 and then an Assistant Professor of Medicine in 2001 at the Harvard Medical School. Since then, his research has been primarily supported by multiple NIH grants (e.g. R01). His current research interests include: (1) roles of cell cycle regulators (mainly the CDK inhibitors) in stem cell self-renewal, (2) distinct molecular mechanisms of leukemic stem cells versus normal hematopoietic stem cells, and (3) stem cell protection under stress or pathological conditions. Dr. Cheng is emerging as an internationally recognized leader in the area of cell cycle control for stem cells. He has published more than 60 research articles, invited reviews, and book chapters in hematology and stem cell biology. He has served on a number of NIH study sections, as an Ad Hoc reviewer for many high-profile journals, and on the editorial board for several international journals. Due to his scientific contributions, he has received several prestigious awards from national and international agencies, including the American Society of Hematology, the PNC Foundation, the Ministry of Education of China, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Department website: http://bmg.mgb.pitt.edu/faculty.asp?ID=141

Albert Donnenberg, PhD

Albert Donnenberg, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. Since 1998, Dr. Donnenberg has also been the director of University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute's (UPCI) Flow Cytometry Shared Facility. Additionally, he is the Co-Leader of the Cancer Stem Cell Program and Director of the UPCI Bone Marrow Processing Laboratory. Dr. Donnenberg received his PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University in 1980, studying cellular immunity to Herpes Simplex Virus. Upon graduation he was elected to Delta Omega, the honorary Public Health Society. After a postdoctoral fellowship under the direction of Dr. George Santos at the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, Dr. Donnenberg was appointed Instructor of Oncology in 1982, Assistant Professor in 1983, and Associate Professor in 1989. He worked on adoptive transfer of donor immunity during allogeneic bone marrow transplantation and on the development and clinical use of T-cell depletion of bone marrow to prevent graft-versus-host disease, an early implementation of engineered cellular therapy. He also performed early studies on cellular immunity in HIV infection and co-developed the concept of T-cell homeostasis. In 1991, Dr. Donnenberg was recruited to the University of Pittsburgh to serve as the Director of Laboratory Research for the Bone Marrow Transplant Program. He was promoted to Professor of Medicine in 2001. His current research interests are in stem cell therapy and graft engineering, immunity after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, and the role of stem cells in neoplasia, a project he pursues with his scientific and life partner Dr. Vera Donnenberg. He is an internationally recognized expert in therapeutic somatic cell processing and flow cytometry.

Department website: http://www.idm.pitt.edu/faculty/donnenberg.html