Associate Professor, Division of Breast and Endocrine Surgery
Contact Info:
1900 University Blvd, Birmingham, AL 35233
Phone: (205) 975-3507
Email: rjsztul@uabmc.edu
Short Bio:
Renata Jaskula-Sztul has a Master’s degree in Cell Biology from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry Polish Academy of Sciences. She completed a two-year postdoctoral training in the Department of Pharmacology followed by an additional three-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Human Oncology at UW-Madison. She is now an Associate Professor in the Division of Breast and Endocrine Surgery. Since joining the Department of Surgery, she has been working on multiple projects investigating the role of several small molecules in suppression of neuroendocrine cancers growth. Some of these compounds are already in Phase I clinical trials. Her research program expands across several areas of NE cancers including (i) preclinical development of anti-cancer drugs, (ii) targeted therapeutics, (iii) imaging, and (iv) novel models of human tissue surrogates and liver metastasis. Dr. Jaskula-Sztul has participated in analyzing the compounds from the NIH library and conducted pre-clinical tests on the positive hits for Notch1 expression using different NE cancer models. She has also been interested in anticancer drug delivery systems based on targeted delivery to increase local drug efficacy and eliminate systemic toxicity. In collaboration with the Bioengineering Department, we have developed nanoparticles (nanopolymers, unimolecular micelles and upconversion nanoparticles), antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), and employed nontoxic heavy chain (rHCR) of Botulinum Neurotoxin Type A for preferential targeting of SSTR2 receptors in NE cancer cells. Dr. Jaskula-Sztul has shown that epigenetic modifiers, including HDAC inhibitors, robustly increase SSTR2 expression in NE cancers improving tumor detection and potential therapy. She has experience in therapeutics testing in multiple preclinical models such as orthotopic, liver metastasis and syngeneic mouse models. Her laboratory also developed NE patient personal testing of new therapeutics using ex vivo tissue surrogates.
