PitarresiLab
@pitarresilab.bsky.social
Jason R. Pitarresi PhD Father. Assistant Professor @umasschan.bsky.social Studying pancreatic cancer, cellular plasticity/metastasis, and tumor-host interactions. www.PitarresiLab.com
My postdoc @nikitab.bsky.social just scored 3% on her K99/R00 Pathway to Independence grant!!!! Congratulations Nikita! She is an absolute rockstar studying cancer cachexia and metabolism in pancreatic cancer. Keep her on your radar if you are hiring in the near future!
a man in a tutu is jumping in the air while a group of people watch .
ALT: a man in a tutu is jumping in the air while a group of people watch .
media.tenor.com
Excited to share our new manuscript on the reprogramming of cholesterol trafficking and sensing in pancreatitis. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reprogramming of cholesterol sensing in epithelial cells supports pancreatic inflammation
Pancreatitis is a common cause of hospitalization that necessitates attentive clinical management. Affected individuals are at risk for pancreatic can…
sciencedirect.com
Interested in stable isotope infusions but daunted by jugular catheter surgery? New from postdoc @kimyumi0201.bsky.social: our simple tail vein catheter method enables anesthesia-free infusions in awake, freely moving mice. 🧵
Thanks @umasschan.bsky.social for writing about postdoc @nikitab.bsky.social in the lab and her recent Rising Star Award from the National Pancreas Foundation and fellowship award from the Pancreatic Cancer Alliance. Excited to go to the NPF awards gala in Boston! www.umassmed.edu/news/news-ar...
Postdoctoral fellow Nikita Bhalerao honored by National Pancreas Foundation
Postdoc Nikita Bhalerao, PhD, received the 2025 Rising Star Award from the National Pancreas Foundation and a fellowship from the Pancreatic Cancer Alliance.
umassmed.edu
Congrats to @calvinjohnsonio.bsky.social in the lab for being selected to give a talk at our cancer center retreat. You did a fantastic job!!
Congrats to postdoc @nikitab.bsky.social for being awarded an AACR Scholar-in-Training award for this year's #AACRPan25 conference. Be sure to check out her poster # B049 today from 6-9pm!
For those attending the Cancer Cachexia Society @cancercachexia.bsky.social meeting in person who just saw my talk, I know there was no chance for questions for the virtual talks today...but I am happy to connect on here, in the meeting's Whova app, or via email. Please reach out! #FOMO
PitarresiLab@pitarresilab.bsky.social · 11mo agoExcited for my talk tomorrow at the 8th Cancer Cachexia Conference meeting, where I will present our work showing that tumor derived PTHrP is a new driver of pancreatic cancer cachexia. Check out our preprint for the full story: biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @cancercachexia.bsky.social
Excited for my talk tomorrow at the 8th Cancer Cachexia Conference meeting, where I will present our work showing that tumor derived PTHrP is a new driver of pancreatic cancer cachexia. Check out our preprint for the full story: biorxiv.org/content/10.1... @cancercachexia.bsky.social
A fantastic write-up about grad student @jessicapeura.bsky.social's recent NIH F31 award and how she uses her life experiences to motivate her work looking at pancreatic cancer metastasis! Pieces like this remind me how lucky I am to be PI, where we get to train the next gen of passionate scientists
UMass Chan Medical School@umasschan.bsky.social · 11mo agoPhD candidate Jessica Peura is studying pancreatic cancer in the lab of Jason Pitarresi, PhD, to prevent families like her own from experiencing cancer-related loss. Discover how her research aims to stop cancer from spreading: direc.to/nqgr @jessicapeura.bsky.social @pitarresilab.bsky.social
Congrats to postdoc @nikitab.bsky.social for winning the Margaret Foti @theaacr.bsky.social Scholar-in-Training Award for next month's Pancreatic AACR conference! If you see her at the conference, be sure to ask her about her work on PDAC cachexia, bioRxiv link below! biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Congrats to @calvinjohnsonio.bsky.social in the lab for being awarded a competitive slot on the Innate Immunity T32 @umasschan.bsky.social! In addition to being an amazing scientist, Calvin is also an elite Cat 2 cyclist. He is the one in black, attacking the breakaway group below!
🧵1/ New in @Cancer_Cell: Our lab discovered that Th17 cells must team up with B cells to eliminate tumors, and prevent it from coming back. 🔗 Read: www.cell.com/cancer-cell/... 🧬This unexpected immune duo sparks tumor immunity. 🖼️Image: See schematic Th17/B cell antitumor action!
Adoptively transferred Th17 cells cooperate with host B cells to achieve durable tumor immunity
Cole et al. report that adoptively transferred, tumor-specific Th17 cells engage host B cells and drive B cell proliferation and differentiation. These Th17 cells require B cells for sustained immunit...
cell.com
Fantastic work as always Cosimo!! Congrats to you and the team, especially first author @yijuan.bsky.social!
Cosimo Commisso@cosimocommisso.bsky.social · last yr.Excited to share work published in @cp-cancercell.bsky.social by @yijuan.bsky.social showing that macropinocytosis inhibition drives myCAF-to-iCAF conversion, enhancing therapeutic responses in pancreatic cancer. Thank you to our collaborators that contributed! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Congrats to @calvinjohnsonio.bsky.social in the lab for winning a travel award for the AAI Advanced Course! He's leading the tumor immunology efforts in the lab and I'm excited to see what he learns at the workshop! 🙏 Grateful to the AAI for supporting trainees during these tough financial times!
a man in a suit and tie is clapping his hands in a room .
ALT: a man in a suit and tie is clapping his hands in a room .
media.tenor.com
NOA!! 🚨 Congrats to @jessicapeura.bsky.social in the lab for getting her NCI F31 notice of award today!! 🚨 With the NIH slowdowns, this has been quite the journey, but I'm happy to see some NOAs coming through for the trainees! @umasschan.bsky.social
a man and a woman are standing next to each other in a room and congratulating each other with congrats .
ALT: a man and a woman are standing next to each other in a room and congratulating each other with congrats .
media.tenor.com
Officially welcoming our 2 new PhD students to the lab today! Head over to our lab website to check out some fun facts about Paula (co-mentored with the Spinelli lab) and Ethan @ethanhcchang.bsky.social. Excited to have you both on board and watch the team grow... www.pitarresilab.com/team
1/Meet the MRS ECLC Chairs! Dr. Thomas Cox @trcox.matrixandmetastasis.com is a Professor at the @garvaninstitute.bsky.social focussing on the Extracellular Matrix and Fibrosis in Cancer. We interviewed Dr. Cox about his role as a founding member of the MRS Early Career Leadership Council 🧵👇
Pancreatic cancer cachexia is mediated by PTHrP-driven disruption of adipose de novo lipogenesis 🧪 doi.org/10.1101/2025...
Pancreatic cancer cachexia is mediated by PTHrP-driven disruption of adipose de novo lipogenesis
Pancreatic cancer patients have the highest rates and most severe forms of cancer cachexia, yet cachexia etiologies remain largely elusive, leading to a lack of effective intervening therapies. PTHrP ...
doi.org
I'm excited to share the lab’s new paper on PDAC-associated cachexia on bioRxiv today, led by star postdoc @nikitab.bsky.social “Pancreatic cancer cachexia is mediated by PTHrP-driven disruption of adipose de novo lipogenesis” A 🧵 below, if you are interested... www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
I'm not sure I will ever experience this again as a PI, but THREE trainees in the lab gave invited talks today at the UMass Chan GI Research Day. Congrats to @nikitab.bsky.social @calvinjohnsonio.bsky.social @jessicapeura.bsky.social! Cahexia-Metastasis-Immunosuppression....we do it all!
The 80-year recipe stoking America’s Prosperity: 1) Free-market capital investments in brilliant ideas… 2) enabled by Engineering Innovations… 3) based on Science Research in Universities… 4) funded by Grants from the US Government. It’s time more people understood this.
My trainee just sent me this notification from the NIH about a pending F31 application. We knew it was likely to come, but it still hurt to read the words.
Congrats to first author @skyeweisse.bsky.social and co-authors @jessicapeura.bsky.social @nikitab.bsky.social @calvinjohnsonio.bsky.social on our recent collaborative effort with the Foskett lab on the role of mitochondrial calcium and MCU in pancreatic cancer metastasis @cellreports.bsky.social
@skyeweisse.bsky.social · last yr.“Mitochondrial Ca2+ controls pancreatic cancer growth and metastasis by regulating epithelial cell plasticity,” is now available at Cell Reports. MCU-KO blocks EMT & reduces metastasis in PDAC, reversed by Snail. @pitarresilab.bsky.social #sciencesky www.cell.com/cell-reports...
“Mitochondrial Ca2+ controls pancreatic cancer growth and metastasis by regulating epithelial cell plasticity,” is now available at Cell Reports. MCU-KO blocks EMT & reduces metastasis in PDAC, reversed by Snail. @pitarresilab.bsky.social #sciencesky www.cell.com/cell-reports...
Mitochondrial Ca2+ controls pancreatic cancer growth and metastasis by regulating epithelial cell plasticity
Weissenrieder et al. show that mitochondrial Ca2+ uniporter (MCU) deletion reduces growth and metastasis of murine KPCY cells by reducing cell-autologous induction of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transit...
cell.com
Article Mitochondrial Ca 2+ controls pancreatic cancer growth and metastasis by regulating ... - goo.gl/alerts/LVVbLH #GoogleAlerts
Mitochondrial Ca2+ controls pancreatic cancer growth and metastasis by regulating epithelial cell plasticity
Endoplasmic reticulum to mitochondria Ca2+ transfer is important for cancer cell survival, but the role of mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake through the mitoc…
goo.gl
Congrats to @anirbanmaitra.bsky.social @linghua-wang.bsky.social and the rest of the team on this absolute tour de force to map plasticity in PDAC, in @nature.com today. So much exciting data to explore here! www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Spatial mapping of transcriptomic plasticity in metastatic pancreatic cancer - Nature
Spatially resolved transcriptomic profiling of primary tumours and metastases from patients with pancreatic cancer provides insight into the evolutionary progression to metastasis, and the variation i...
nature.com
Congrats to grad student @calvinjohnsonio.bsky.social for being chosen for an oral presentation at the Immunology Microbiology Program (IMP) retreat!
Gov. Maura Healey came to UMass Chan Medical School on Tuesday to learn about the implications of cuts and delays to the Medical School’s NIH funding. “Institutions like UMass Chan are under threat." Watch the video to see what else Gov. Healey had to say: direc.to/nbsV #NIHfunding
Amid NIH funding cuts and uncertainty, Gov. Healey says future of science, research in Massachusetts is at stake
The visit included a tour of the new Paul J. DiMare Center and a closed-door meeting with UMass Chan faculty members.
direc.to
Congrats to @nikitab.bsky.social for being selected to give a talk at the Cancer Cachexia Society meeting today! She did a great job representing the lab and showcasing her exciting project on the role of PTHrP in mediating PDAC-associated cancer cachexia.
