Author: Rachael Guenter

Dr. Guenter and Grayson Gimblet receive awards at the 2023 Annual meeting for the American Association of Endocrine Surgeons (AAES)

UAB Division of Surgical Oncology Clinical Instructor Dr. Rachael Guenter was awarded the Geoffrey Thompson Best Poster Award. Dr. Guenter investigates the molecular mechanisms of neuroendocrine cancer and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma to develop novel therapeutic strategies. Currently, her areas of focus include the development of novel theranostic agents for pancreatic cancers and understanding the role of Notch signaling in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.

Heersink School of Medicine student Grayson Gimblet, along with his faculty advisor Associate Professor Dr. Renata Jaskula-Sztul, won the Best Paper Award for their presentation on “Thyroid-Stimulating Hormone Receptor (TSHR) as a Target for Imaging Differentiated Thyroid Cancer.”

“Grayson did a fantastic job with presenting the paper and answering questions,” says Jaskula-Sztul. “I am proud of him and honored that we were chosen to receive this outstanding award.”

Piyasuda’s wins American Thyroid Association (ATA) award for her research!

We are so proud of graduate student Piyasuda Pukkanasut for winning the 2022 Women Advancing Thyroid Research (WATR) Award from ATA’s 2022 Annual Meeting. This award recognizes and celebrates the work of early career women conducting outstanding thyroid research. Our abstract title is “Targeting Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels in Medullary Thyroid Cancer Using Small Molecules.” In this study, her team identified a small molecule VGSC inhibitor which its half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) in MTC cells were 6-fold lower than the normal thyroid cells (p<0.0001). The treatment of MTC cells with half of the IC50 concentration of the lead compound reduced MTC migration/invasion up to 25%.

The WATR Award is an ATA award sponsored by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. through the Rosalind Franklin Society (https://www.rosalindfranklinsociety.org/).

Brendon Herring WINS best oral presentation at 2022 NANETS Annual meeting!

A huge congratulations to lab member Brendon Herring for winning “Best Oral Presentation” at the 2022 Annual NANETS meeting in Washington, DC! Brendon’s presentation was titled: “Transcriptomic Influences of Racial Disparities in Black Patients with Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors.” CLICK HERE TO READ HIS ABSTRACT!
Neuroendocrine Surgery Lab Members celebrate Brendon’s award for best oral presentation!! (from left to right: Weisheng Chen, Dr. Rachael Guenter, Dr. Bart Rose, Brendon Herring)

Neuroendocrine Surgery Lab Team Presents at #NANETS2022!

Members of the Neuroendocrine Surgery Lab Team presented their research at the North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society (NANETS) 2022 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC October 27-29th! Scroll down to learn more about their presentations:

Weisheng Chen gave a poster presentation title “Deletion of Notch1 Signaling in Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors Reduces Metastatic Properties.” CLICK HERE to read his abstract!
Katherine McElroy had a poster presentation titled “Have We Accounted for Asians? A Critical Analysis of Racial Cancer Disparity Amongst Asian Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumor Patients.” CLICK HERE to read her abstract! Katherine also received the NANETS 2022 Travel Award!
Brendon Herring gave an oral presentation titled “Transcriptomic Influences of Racial Disparities in Black Patients with Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors.” CLICK HERE to read his abstract!
Jason Whitt had a poster presentation titled “Simultaneous Inhibition of DNA Methylation and Histone De-acetylation for Enhanced SSTR2 Expression In Vitro.” CLICK HERE to read his abstract!
Rachael Guenter gave an oral presentation titled “Detecting Cell Surface Expression of Calreticulin in Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors Using a Novel [68Ga]-Radiolabeled Peptide.” CLICK HERE to read her abstract!
We are so proud of each lab member for giving fantastic presentations at the NANETS 2022 Annual Meeting!