PitarresiLab

Fantastic! Thank you, Florian!

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 .

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!

Congrats Al and team! I missed this during the crazy holiday season, well done!

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…

Excited to share our new manuscript on the reprogramming of cholesterol trafficking and sensing in pancreatitis.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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. 🧵

This is amazing Gina, thank you for sharing! We will be reaching out for details.

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.

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...

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!

Thank you, Jeremy!

Thanks Giulia! I'm looking forward to watching your talk when it's put on the meeting app!

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

Unfortunately, due to a last minute family medical issue, I will not be able to attend in person but will give my talk virtually and am available on here or via email to discuss our work after!

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

As a PI during these tough financial times, we really appreciate societies like @theaacr.bsky.social for supporting our trainees to attend conferences that are critical for their growth!

🙏 Thank you @AACR_CEO Margaret Foti!

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!

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...

🧵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!

Fantastic work as always Cosimo!! Congrats to you and the team, especially first author @yijuan.bsky.social!

Congrats Cosimo!!

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 .

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 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 .

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

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 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 ...

Pancreatic cancer cachexia is mediated by PTHrP-driven disruption of adipose de novo lipogenesis
🧪 doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Immensely grateful to all collaborators from the Guertin, @marcus-ruscetti.bsky.social, @game-of-chroms.bsky.social, Zhu, Kremer, Czech, Guilherme, and Hollingsworth labs. you all have made this journey an amazing one.🙏

Most importantly, this paper only came together because of the fantastic community of collaborators we have built over the years.

Really proud of my team led by @nikitab.bsky.social with critical support from Yamini Ogoti, @jessicapeura.bsky.social, and @calvinjohnsonio.bsky.social

...🧵

To wrap this story up, we treated KPCY animals with a monoclonal neutralizing antibody against PTHrP (🙏 Richard Kremer), which was able to block wasting and restore DNL. We are hoping this will be a new therapeutic option for patients suffering from cancer cachexia in the near future

...🧵

This is where we relied on our adipose tissue expert collaborators (Dave Guertin, Mike Czech, Adilson Guilherme labs), who helped us delete Fasn, a key enzyme in the DNL pathway, in adipocytes. When we injected a non-cachectic cell line into these mice, we found that it became cachectic!

...🧵