Article Category: In the Media

Ghobadi appointed Director of Cellular Therapies at Siteman

Armin Ghobadi, MD, a WashU Medicine professor of medicine and bone marrow transplant specialist, has been named director of cellular therapies at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine.

The new position formalizes his role as leader of clinical care and clinical research activities related to cellular therapy in the Hematologic Malignancies program at WashU Medicine.

Cellular therapies — which include chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy and other gene and non-gene modified cellular therapies — supercharge a patient’s own immune cells or donor immune cells to fight disease. Siteman and WashU Medicine were among the first in the nation to offer CAR-T therapy — in clinical trials, initially, which Ghobadi helped lead, and as a standard of care when the therapy first received FDA approval in 2017.

As director of cellular therapies at Siteman, Ghobadi will:

  • Oversee clinical guidelines and protocols for patients receiving such treatments
  • Review quality assurance and quality improvement metrics for the cellular therapy program
  • Support clinical trials and translational research

“Dr. Ghobadi has played a pivotal role in the development of our outstanding CAR-T and cellular therapy program over the past 10 years, and we look forward to his continued stewardship of the program,” WashU Medicine physicians Daniel Link, MD, and Amanda Cashen, MD, said in a joint statement.

Link is the Alan and Edith Wolff Endowed Professor and chief of Oncology at WashU Medicine and deputy director of Siteman. Cashen is a professor of medicine and associate chief of the Hematologic Malignancies program.

A physician and clinical-translational researcher committed to developing and providing leading-edge care, Ghobadi specializes in the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma. He is board-certified in medical oncology.

“It is an honor to be appointed director of cellular therapies,” he said. “The new role strengthens our center’s cellular therapy enterprise in delivering and advancing some of the most promising therapies — and its creation reinforces WashU Medicine and Siteman Cancer Center’s commitment to patients today and tomorrow.”

Ghobadi’s other administrative roles include being clinical director of the Center for Gene and Cellular Immunotherapy at WashU Medicine and Siteman, which is internationally recognized for developing and offering some of the most innovative gene and cellular immunotherapies for hematologic malignancies and solid tumors.

Ghobadi earned his medical degree from Iran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services School of Medicine in 2001. He continued his training as an internal medicine intern and resident at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and as a fellow at both WashU Medicine and MD Anderson Cancer Center. In 2013, he joined the WashU Medicine faculty and began treating patients at Siteman.

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Inflammatory immune cells predict survival, relapse in multiple myeloma

New ‘atlas’ of immune cells in bone marrow cancer lays foundation for more reliable prognosis

A new study maps the immune cell landscape of bone marrow in patients with multiple myeloma, a rare cancer that develops in the plasma cells of the bone marrow and has no cure. This large immune cell atlas, which includes robust patient outcome data, provides unparalleled new insights into how the immune system interacts with cancerous plasma cells and can be used to determine how aggressive a patient’s multiple myeloma is likely to be. The knowledge may improve survival predictions, guide treatment decisions and help in the development of new immune-based therapies for patients with multiple myeloma.

The study — co-led by WashU Medicine researchers at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, in collaboration with the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) and other leading institutions across the country — appears Jan. 9 in the journal Nature Cancer.

“It is time for a better understanding of the immune system in multiple myeloma,” said WashU Medicine co-senior author Li Ding, PhD, the David English Smith Professor of Medicine and a research member of Siteman. “In addition to targeting the cancerous plasma cells directly, we also want new and better ways to activate the immune system to attack the malignant cells. This large-scale immune cell atlas will serve as a critical resource to investigators studying multiple myeloma and working to develop better therapies.”

While considered a rare cancer, multiple myeloma is the second most common blood cancer after leukemia, accounting for about 15%-20% of new blood cancer diagnoses in the U.S. annually. Plasma cells are white blood cells in the bone marrow. When they grow out of control, they crowd out healthy blood cells. About 60% of patients are still living five years after diagnosis.

Many new treatment options have emerged for multiple myeloma in recent years that can extend survival for many patients, sometimes for more than a decade. Even so, the disease almost always returns after periods of remission, emphasizing the need for new and better options.

Several of the newest therapies for multiple myeloma are immune system-based, including CAR-T cells and what are known as bispecific antibodies. But researchers suspect there may yet be untapped opportunities for immune-based treatments for multiple myeloma, and the immune cell atlas is a new tool to harness in pursuit of such therapies.

“This immune atlas provides a roadmap for the next generation of myeloma care,” said coauthor and WashU Medicine oncologist Ravi Vij, MD, the Jeffrey S. and Prue H. Gershman Distinguished Professor of Medicine and a research member of Siteman. “As immunotherapies like CAR-T cells and bispecific antibodies become central to treatment, understanding the immune context in which they operate is essential. Clinically, this work lays the foundation for immune-informed risk stratification and rational development of new therapies that not only target the tumor but also restore effective anti-myeloma immunity.”

Vij treats patients with multiple myeloma and other blood cancers at The Blood Cancer Center at Siteman.

A cell-by-cell catalog of multiple myeloma

The research team performed a rigorous and cutting-edge genetic analysis called single-cell RNA sequencing of almost 1.4 million individual plasma and immune cells in bone marrow sampled from 337 newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients. This type of analysis can reveal how individual immune cells may function — or become dysfunctional — in the context of multiple myeloma.

The data describe patients enrolled in MMRF’s CoMMpass Study, which is the first large-scale, long-running study of patients with multiple myeloma focused on analyzing disease progression and treatment response based on the genomic and molecular profiles of the patients. WashU Medicine is one of multiple sites participating in the CoMMpass Study.

The investigators found that patients with certain types of immune cells in their bone marrow at diagnosis were more likely than others to relapse quickly, meaning their cancer returned soon after a first round of treatment. The researchers identified signaling patterns between the cancer cells and immune cells that drive inflammation, which might be boosting the cancer’s growth in patients with aggressive disease.

The team also identified a type of T cell that had stopped working as expected and, rather than attacking the tumor as it should, acted to suppress immune activity against the cancer. Together, these findings could help make prognosis more accurate and aid in selecting the best therapies.

“This immune atlas represents the power of collaborative science,” said co-senior author and MMRF Chief Scientific Officer George Mulligan, PhD. “The MMRF’s CoMMpass Study, combined with the expertise from investigators at WashU Medicine and leading institutions across the country, has created an unprecedented resource that will accelerate discovery and improve outcomes for myeloma patients.”

Importantly, the researchers showed that knowledge of the immune environment in a patient’s bone marrow could improve upon current methods for predicting which patients are most likely to experience an aggressive course of the disease and have shortened survival. Such predictions can help guide treatment decisions in terms of matching the intensity of the treatment with the aggressiveness of the cancer.

Current methods for determining whether a patient has high-risk multiple myeloma versus standard risk rely on knowing the genetic features of the cancer cells combined with clinical aspects of the patient’s health. The new study found that adding an immune component to this analysis would likely improve the accuracy of the categorization.

“More work is needed to develop specific immune-based blood tests, for example, that clinicians could order to better identify the aggressiveness of a particular case of multiple myeloma and help them select the best treatments for that patient,” Ding said. “This immune cell atlas fills a gap in knowledge that is needed to develop these types of new clinical tools.”

The MMRF designed and funded this research, which involved collaboration among the Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, Harvard Medical School and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

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Pilcher WC, Yao L, Gonzalez-Kozlova E, Pita-Juarez Y, Karagkouni D, Acharya CR, Michaud ME, Hamilton M, Nanda S, Song Y, Sato K, Wang JT, Satpathy S, Ma Y, Schulman J, D’Souza D, Jayasinghe RG, Ohlstrom D, Ferguson KE, Cheloni G, Bakhtiari M, Pabustan N, Nie K, Foltz JA, Saldarriaga I, Alaaeldin R, Lepisto E, Chen R, Fiala MA, Thomas BE, Cook A, Vieira Dos Santos J, Chiang I, Figueiredo I, Fortier J, Slade M, Oh ST, Rettig MP, Anderson E, Li Y, Dasari S, Strausbauch MA, Simon VA, Immune Atlas Consortium, Radkevich E, Rahman AH, Chen Z, Lagana A, DiPersio JF, Rosenblatt J, Kim-Schulze S, Lonial S, Kumar S, Bhasin SS, Kourelis T, Dhodapkar MV, Vij R, Avigan D, Cho HJ, Mulligan G, Ding L, Gnjatic S, Vlachos IS, Bhasin M. A single-cell atlas characterizes dysregulation of the bone marrow immune microenvironment associated with outcomes in multiple myeloma. Nature Cancer. Jan. 9, 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s43018-025-01072-4.

This work was designed and supported by the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation; the Myeloma Solutions Fund; the Paula C. and Rodger O. Riney Blood Cancer Research Fund; and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), grant numbers U24CA224319, U01DK124165, P30CA196521, R50CA211466, R35CA210084, 5K12CA090628, U24CA211006, U2CCA233303, PJ000021702, R01CA258776 and UL1TR004419. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Gary C. Werths building at Siteman earns LEED Gold

Project team identified more environmentally friendly solutions throughout the building process

The Gary C. Werths Building at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, has earned Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Buildings that achieve this recognition must meet stringent criteria in categories such as energy efficiency, water conservation and material recycling — all indicators of lower environmental impact. The nine-story Werths Building opened in September 2024 on the Washington University Medical Campus.

While numerous factors such as monitoring energy use and improving air quality contributed to the accomplishment, the WashU Medicine Operations and Facilities Management team’s embodied carbon effort set it apart. The Embodied Carbon Program was developed by WashU Medicine and the Werths Building’s project management team. It involves maintaining a comprehensive inventory of materials used during a building’s design, procurement and construction, and identifying more environmentally friendly alternatives throughout the process. Carbon-conscious decision-making informed everything from choosing more eco-friendly carpet and concrete to preventing unnecessary transportation and construction waste.

In total, WashU Medicine’s energy reduction efforts have avoided 4.2 million kg Co2e in emissions, equivalent to 208 garbage trucks of waste recycled instead of sent to a landfill. WashU Medicine has since incorporated the Embodied Carbon Program into its design standards for future projects and has provided training on it for the WashU Office of Sustainability.

The Werths Building provides a healing environment for patients, with the design focused on their comfort and convenience and reducing the need to return for multiple appointments. Within its walls, WashU Medicine physicians also offer access to more than 600 clinical trials designed to assess the effectiveness of innovative treatments and applications for people with various cancer types.

The LEED point system is widely recognized as the industry standard for green buildings in the United States and more than 160 countries around the world. The more points a building earns, the higher its LEED rating will be. There are four levels of LEED certification: Certified (40-49 points), Silver (50-59 points), Gold (60-79 points) and Platinum (80+ points). The Werths Building was awarded all 65 points that were submitted.

Ratner receives $9.86 million grant to study cancers caused by retrovirus

Lee Ratner, MD, PhD, the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Professor of Oncology at WashU Medicine, has been awarded a five-year, $9.86 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate cancers caused by human retroviruses. This NIH Research Program Project Grant, which includes collaborators at The Ohio State University, supports a multidisciplinary effort aimed at solving a range of related problems focused on a central theme.

Led by Ratner, who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, the projects are focused on developing ways to prevent and treat cancers caused by a virus called human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1). When HTLV-1 infects the immune system’s T cells, they live longer than they should, letting genetic mutations build up that could lead the cells to become cancerous. This sometimes leads to a life-threatening blood cancer called adult T-cell leukemia or T-cell lymphoma.

With this new funding, Ratner and his colleagues will build on their studies of vaccines and how they could help prevent and treat HTLV-1 infections in an effort to stop the cancer from ever developing. With the goal of developing better therapies for patients with these cancers, the researchers are also investigating how infected T cells change their environment to ensure their own growth and survival. One example is Ratner’s work with Deborah Veis, MD, PhD, of WashU Medicine’s Division of Bone and Mineral Diseases, showing infected T cells produce small particles called extracellular vesicles that contribute to the destruction of bone tissue. Developing ways to counter such environmental changes could lead to new therapeutic strategies for patients.

Connecting cancer patients to tobacco treatment is aim of $7.5 million, WashU-led trial

Cancer patients who quit smoking live significantly longer than those who don’t

The science is clear: Cancer patients who quit smoking fare much better than those who don’t. Quitters respond better to treatment and are less likely to see their disease come back or develop a new cancer, and they have a lower risk of other serious conditions such as heart disease. Quitting is hard, but people who participate in evidence-based tobacco-treatment programs are three times more likely to succeed in kicking the habit.

Still, despite the proven benefits of quitting, most cancer patients and survivors who smoke never receive treatment for their tobacco use.

A large-scale, multicenter trial led by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis aims to reduce the burden of cancer by getting more survivors the support they need to quit smoking. The trial — a four-year study to be conducted at 72 cancer centers across eight states, including Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine — will test different clinic-based approaches to connecting cancer survivors to tobacco treatment. The goal is to develop evidence-based recommendations on how to choose, implement and sustain an effective tobacco-treatment strategy at a cancer clinic.

“Even though smoking cessation is part of the standard of care, six out of seven patients with cancer who smoke are not getting any tobacco treatment, so they continue to smoke, and eventually they die early,” said Li-Shiun Chen, MD, MPH, ScD, a professor of psychiatry at WashU Medicine and one of three principal investigators on the trial. “That’s a big missed opportunity. We already know an important way to reduce cancer deaths, and we’re not implementing it.”

Chen and the two other principal investigators — Ross Brownson, PhD, and Alex Ramsey, PhD — are research members at Siteman.

A previous effort to integrate tobacco cessation into cancer care nationwide revealed sobering results. In 2017, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched the Cancer Center Cessation Initiative, an ambitious plan to roll out tobacco-treatment programs at the then-52 NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers nationwide. A five-year analysis revealed that the centers had succeeded in connecting only 15% of their cancer patients with such care, with huge variation in connection rates across centers.

“Scaling up is not a simple thing,” said Brownson, who is also the Steven H. and Susan U. Lipstein Professor at the WashU School of Public Health. “Many of these centers used similar strategies, but the results were varied. We need to understand why a strategy that was effective for one center didn’t work at another one, and what alternative strategy would be more effective.”

That need drove Chen, Brownson and Ramsey, who is also an associate professor of psychiatry at WashU Medicine, to propose the Implementation Science to Scale and Sustain Tobacco Treatment Leveraging a Point of Care Paradigm and Health Information Technology (IMPACT) trial. The three researchers co-lead the trial in collaboration with experts and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the St. Louis VA Medical Center. The trial, which will be implemented at cancer clinics affiliated with the four hub sites, aims to determine how to match strategy to clinic, taking into consideration such factors as the size of a clinic, the barriers to receiving care faced by its patients, and the institutional support and resources available. The WashU team is implementing the trial at clinics affiliated with Siteman, where Chen serves as director of the Tobacco Treatment Program.

The trial is supported by a $6.9 million grant from the NCI, with an additional $600,000 provided by Siteman. It is one of four projects in the NCI’s Scaling-up and Maintaining Evidence-based Interventions to Maximize Impact on Cancer (SUMMIT) initiative, a major investment in improving cancer prevention and control by studying how to implement proven interventions in real-world settings.

As part of the trial, each clinic will be randomized to one of four strategies: usual care, referral to a specialist, point of care, or combined referral and point of care. The referral strategy is the most common way of getting patients into tobacco care: The oncologist asks about smoking during a regular visit and refers those who answer yes to a tobacco-treatment specialist. The patient then makes an appointment to meet the specialist at a separate visit. The strategy can work well when a cancer center is able to fund enough tobacco specialists, and patients have the time, resources and willingness to add more appointments to their calendars.

The point-of-care model was developed by Chen and colleagues at Siteman during a time when no tobacco-treatment specialists were on staff. In this model, all hands are on deck: Medical assistants, staff nurses, and nurse practitioners conduct the tobacco-use assessment, provide brief advice to quit smoking and queue cessation medication orders for the clinician to prescribe. They also refer patients to free phone, text or app-based cessation services such as Quitline, a phone-based service available nationwide at 1-800-QUIT-NOW; text messaging cessation services, reachable by texting QUITNOW to 333888; or an app supported by Smokefree.gov. In a recent study, Chen and colleagues showed that a point-of-care approach can be very effective at helping cancer patients quit smoking and improving outcomes.

The record of the Cancer Center Cessation Initiative suggests that many of the clinics may not initially succeed with the strategy they are assigned. Those that are unable to connect at least 15% of eligible patients to tobacco treatment after 18 months will be offered the options of continuing the current strategy, if more time is thought to be helpful; trying a different strategy; or modifying their strategy to include personalized tobacco-treatment plans based on each patient’s unique genetic, clinical and environmental factors.

In those clinics that do succeed, the focus will shift to sustainability. New clinical practices, even successful ones, are at risk of being abandoned when funding ends or priorities change. To minimize this risk, clinics will be provided either general sustainability support, or clinic-specific support based on data from the Clinical Sustainability Assessment Tool. The validated tool — developed at WashU Public Health’s Center for Public Health Systems Science — provides a systematic way to assess the factors that promote sustainability of clinical practices.

“Even when we know what treatments or prevention tools work, we don’t know enough about how we can implement them quickly, scale them up more widely or sustain them long enough,” Ramsey said. “The ultimate goal is to make sure that every single cancer patient who smokes is engaged with treatment, but the route to get there is going to be different for each clinic. We need to figure out which strategies will work best in which context, so we can use the evidence-based tools we already have to improve people’s health.”

Learn about smoking cessation tools available to our patients and community members.

WashU researchers at Siteman honored with NIH Director’s awards

Three investigators recognized by high-risk, high-reward research program

Three WashU researchers at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine have received prestigious and highly competitive awards through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. The awards support unconventional approaches to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research.

Andrew L. Young, MD, PhD, and Janet Sorrells, PhD, each have received the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, which supports the launch of research careers for exceptional junior scientists who recently received their doctoral degree or completed clinical training.

Michael P. Meers, PhD, has received the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, which supports unusually innovative research from investigators who are within 10 years of their final degree or clinical residency and have not yet received a large independent NIH grant.

Understanding Aging’s Effect on Cancer Risk

Young, an assistant professor in the Division of Hematology at WashU Medicine, studies how genetic mutations in blood and bone marrow cells acquired with age contribute to cancer risk. Most previous work in this area has looked at mutations in individuals who have already developed cancer, to see which mutations might have been responsible. Young’s research will focus on studying such mutations in cancer-free adults at advanced ages to better understand who goes on to develop cancer and why.

Because most of these cancer-related mutations can exist in the body for long periods of time but never lead to cancer, studying such genetic changes in healthy adults could provide new clues to preventing cancer.

“We have a relatively good understanding of how germline genetic risk, such as inherited BCRA1 mutations, and environmental exposures such as smoking lead to disease,” said Young, who treats patients at Siteman Cancer Center. “But we know less about how the genomic changes associated with ‘normal’ aging drive the development of disease and could be used to predict or prevent those diseases. This support will allow us to conduct the foundational experiments necessary to understanding how aging affects our bodies at the genomic level and how those genomic changes influence human disease.”

Boosting the Efficiency of Regenerating Tissue

Meers, an assistant professor in the Department of Genetics at WashU Medicine, is focused on developing new tools and techniques to help guide stem cells to becoming specific mature cell types. Such tools could nurture the nascent field of regenerative medicine, in which stem cells or even specialized cell types, such as skin cells, could be reprogrammed to form new tissues and organs that could replace those damaged by disease or injury.

Most existing processes for directing cells to take on particular functions or identities are inefficient in producing the targeted cell type, making them unsuitable to treating human disease. Meers and his team are developing a novel time-lapse profiling method to monitor changes in how a cell’s genes are regulated as it goes through the reprogramming process. A better understanding of these changes could lead to the development of more precise and efficient cell conversion methods that are more suitable for human therapeutics.

“Some of the most groundbreaking, paradigm-shifting science has historically come from the sorts of research that took risks, and we’re pleased to have the opportunity to pursue that sort of research with this NIH support,” Meers said. “This award is a green light to focus solely and without distraction on exactly what we think will make the greatest positive impact on scientific knowledge and human health.”

Revealing the Origins of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Sorrells, an assistant professor in the Preston M. Green Department of Electrical & Systems Engineering at the McKelvey School of Engineering, is focused on developing a new imaging tool to study inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), a chronic gastrointestinal disorder that increases the risk of colorectal cancer. Significant gaps exist in the knowledge of how host cells and intestinal microbes interact in real time within the intestinal microenvironment.

Sorrells is developing an integrated optical imaging platform that can observe the intestinal microenvironment in mice with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Most laboratory methods rely on bulk analysis of extracted tissue, which eliminates spatial context, or use imaging techniques that cannot achieve both the resolution and the speed needed to capture microbial behavior and host metabolism in vivo.

“We lose the ability to look at complicated dynamics that happen on the seconds scale within biological systems, and we also lose the ability to get higher throughput of larger areas,” she said. “One of the goals of this grant is to develop a new method for label-free super-resolution, with nonlinear optical microscopy.”

Sorrells’ approach ensures that the measurements reflect native physiology rather than an experimental artifact.

“The application is to look at a living gut microbiome,” she said. “Seeing how both bacteria and host cells are interacting over time and looking at how that changes spatially will help us better understand the many factors at play in the gut microbiome. Looking at live bacteria-host interactions will allow us to understand healthy and diseased states.”

The new imaging tool also could be used to study other complex tissue microenvironments, including those relevant to cancer, infection and autoimmune disorders.

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This work is supported by NIH grant numbers DP2 GM164659-01 (Meers), DP5 OD038607-01 (Sorrells) and DP5 OD039424-01 (Young). This work is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Puram named Head of Otolaryngology

Leading physician-scientist and head and neck cancer specialist also revered as a mentor

Sidharth “Sid” V. Puram, MD, PhD, has been named the head of the Department of Otolaryngology — Head & Neck Surgery and the Lindburg Professor of Otolaryngology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. A nationally recognized physician-scientist specializing in head and neck cancer surgery, Puram currently serves as the Joseph B. Kimbrough Professor and director of the department’s Division of Head & Neck Surgery. He also is co-director of the Robert Ebert and Greg Stubblefield Head and Neck Tumor Center at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine. Puram’s new appointment begins Nov. 1, 2025.

His research has advanced understanding of tumor growth, treatment resistance and metastasis in head and neck cancers — discoveries that have opened new options for treating these challenging tumors.

“Dr. Puram is an exceptionally talented physician-scientist and mentor who was unanimously selected by our leadership team from an outstanding pool of candidates,” said David H. Perlmutter, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and the George and Carol Bauer Dean of WashU Medicine, who announced Puram’s new appointment. “He will be leading a department that has always been esteemed but has grown in accomplishments and reputation in the last decade under the leadership of Dr. Craig Buchman. We believe Dr. Puram will inspire the otolaryngology team at WashU Medicine, with our partners at BJC HealthCare, to even greater impact and advance the science-based practice of care for patients with upper airways disorders in the coming decades.”

Puram’s research explores tumor heterogeneity — the complex ecosystem of diverse cells within a cancer and how they communicate with one another — a focus that has garnered significant funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Understanding the cellular and genetic make-up of tumors can help scientists and clinicians identify and target the specific cells implicated in troubling behaviors seen in cancer such as tumor invasion, spread and resistance to therapy. His research has informed several innovative clinical trials and identified still other potential treatment avenues.

Detailing the diversity within tumors has pointed the way toward precision treatments for certain kinds of head and neck cancers and provides a foundation for developing therapies more tailored to the tumors of individual patients.

Through his leadership of the Division of Head & Neck Surgery at WashU Medicine, Puram has guided growth in both faculty and patient referrals while also establishing new collaborations with other departments to broaden the expertise offered to head and neck cancer patients with complex clinical needs. In his role as co-director of the Robert Ebert and Greg Stubblefield Head and Neck Tumor Center, Puram has overseen a coordinated clinical program including head and neck specialists, oral health services, ancillary care and mental health care, among other services, with care coordination driven by patient navigation. This innovative, multidisciplinary approach is designed to improve patient outcomes by supporting patients throughout their cancer treatment while improving communication among the care team.

These programs reflect the department’s broader leadership in research and patient care. The department is the fifth-highest recipient of NIH research funding for otolaryngology departments. Each year, its physicians care for more than 120,000 patients and perform more than 11,000 surgeries, including nose and sinus operations; cochlear implants and other procedures to restore hearing; facial reconstruction surgeries; procedures to improve voice and swallowing; pediatric upper airway surgeries; and cancer surgeries.

“Otolaryngology at WashU Medicine is like no other in the U.S. in terms of its academic rigor and the collegiality of the faculty and researchers, so it is a great honor to have been selected to lead the department,” said Puram. “We have a fantastic team of physicians, researchers and trainees here who are absolutely committed to delivering the highest standard of care for our patients today and to carrying out rigorous research that will benefit the patients of tomorrow. Our team continues to push the boundaries through innovative surgical techniques and research projects that will disrupt traditional paradigms of care. I’m very excited to be able to carry that mission forward.”

As a head and neck cancer specialist, Puram is in the rare position as a physician of being both his patients’ surgeon and primary oncologist. With a particular focus on reconstructive surgery after the removal of head and neck cancer, he helps many patients return to their lives and minimize damage to key functions such as speech, swallowing, taste, hearing and smell.

Puram earned his bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned both his MD and PhD from Harvard Medical School in 2013. For his graduate research, Puram identified signaling pathways in brain cells that affect the shape of their dendrites, which are key recipients of information.

Puram chose otolaryngology as his medical specialty because it provided him the opportunity to perform a variety of anatomically intricate and challenging surgeries while also practicing as a cancer specialist. He completed a residency in otolaryngology in the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary/Harvard Combined Program in 2018. During his simultaneous postdoctoral fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/MIT Broad Institute, Puram published the first single-cell atlas of head and neck cancers. He then completed his training with a clinical fellowship in microvascular reconstruction/head and neck surgical oncology at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James before coming to WashU Medicine in 2019.

Puram serves on the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research special grants review study section. He is also on the editorial boards of Surgical Oncology Insight, Head & Neck and Frontiers in Oncology. Puram has been recognized by his peers for his teaching, science and clinical skills. He received the American Society for Clinical Investigation Young Physician Scientist Award in 2020 and was named a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 2021. He received the Department of Otolaryngology — Head & Neck Surgery Faculty Teaching Award earlier this year.

Woodard elected to National Academy of Medicine

Pamela K. Woodard, MD, head of the Department of Radiology and director of Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine — one of the highest honors in health and medicine. Election to the academy recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service.

Woodard, also the Elizabeth E. Mallinckrodt Professor of Radiology at WashU Medicine and a research member at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, is one of 100 new members elected to the academy this year. She was honored for her leadership as director of Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, one of the largest academic radiology departments in the U.S., ranking third in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Woodard’s election reflects a distinguished career as a researcher and clinician — marked by major advances in the development and clinical translation of cardiac imaging techniques that have improved clinicians’ ability to diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease — as well as her dedication to inspiring the next generation of physician-scientists in the field.

“Dr. Woodard’s groundbreaking work in cardiothoracic imaging and her commitment to training radiologists have advanced imaging science and the practice of radiology in exceptional ways,” said David H. Perlmutter, MD, Executive Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and the George and Carol Bauer Dean of WashU Medicine. “Her election to the National Academy of Medicine is a well-deserved honor that reflects key contributions to improving patient care in the area of radiology. We’re so proud to celebrate this recognition with her and grateful for all she contributes to the WashU Medicine community.”

Among her accomplishments is the clinical translation of a technique to decrease motion artifact (an image disturbance due to movement) in MRI scans caused by a patient’s breathing. This advance has allowed three-dimensional MRI imaging to be used for diagnostic scans of cardiac patients. The first clinical use of the technique occurred at WashU Medicine.

She also led a team that has provided new tools to help doctors characterize atherosclerotic plaques, which are accumulations of fats and other materials in blood vessels that can cause cardiovascular events such as heart attacks or strokes. The nanoparticle-based PET imaging radiotracer her group developed selectively adheres to specific receptors in the plaques in the blood vessels, potentially allowing physicians to better identify their patients’ risk of stroke. Woodard has also led other first-in-human trials translating WashU-developed PET radiotracers into people.

Woodard is a pioneer in developing the use of multidetector spiral CT — a device that collects multiple CT images simultaneously — to detect pulmonary embolisms, which are potentially deadly blood clots that travel into the blood vessels of the lungs. Woodard worked on the technique as a resident at Duke University. She also was a principal investigator of the clinical trial that eventually established the imaging technique as the standard of care for diagnosing blood clots in the lungs.

A committed educator, Woodard has led the Training Opportunities in Translational Imaging Education and Research (TOP-TIER) program at MIR since its inception in 2017. The NIH-funded program trains radiology residents and fellows in advanced translational imaging research.

Woodard is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the American College of Radiology and the American Heart Association. She was awarded the Gold Medal from the North American Society for Cardiovascular Imaging in 2025, the Radiological Society of North America’s Outstanding Researcher award in 2021 and, in 2015, the Distinguished Investigator Award given by the Academy of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research, of which she is currently president. In 2024-2025 she served as president of the American College of Radiology.

Woodard earned her bachelor’s and medical degrees from Duke. She then completed an internship in internal medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She returned to Duke for her residency in radiology and came to WashU Medicine for a clinical fellowship in cardiothoracic radiology, before joining the WashU Medicine faculty in 1997.

New center to develop AI-based imaging tools to improve diagnosis, care

WashU Medicine Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology leads effort on image-based precision medicine

Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is establishing a new center dedicated to developing AI-based imaging tools to improve the diagnosis and precision treatment of cancers, cardiovascular disease, neurological diseases and numerous other conditions. The new Center for Computational and AI-enabled Imaging Sciences brings together collaborators from across WashU Medicine — including Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine — and others from WashU’s McKelvey School of Engineering.

AI already has shown promise for its ability to analyze vast collections of medical images to generate clinically relevant insights, identifying patterns and anomalies that physicians might otherwise not detect on their own.

“Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology has long been a national leader in developing innovative imaging technologies, from the invention of positron emission tomography to today’s AI applications in diagnostics and image analysis, and this new center represents an ambitious expansion of our capability,” said Pamela K. Woodard, MD, the Elizabeth E. Mallinckrodt Professor and head of MIR at WashU Medicine. “Integrating AI into imaging will enhance how we diagnose disease, predict its progression and tailor treatments to the unique needs of each patient.”

The new center will help advance AI-driven imaging technologies, such as two recently developed at WashU Medicine — in collaboration with MIR — that are being commercialized. One tool can analyze mammograms to predict an individual patient’s risk of breast cancer over the next five years. Another rapidly maps the brain to help neurosurgeons plan delicate surgeries and avoid sensitive areas that control speech, movement and cognitive function. The center will be a hub for expertise in image analysis that uses sophisticated computing tools to find patterns in datasets of millions of medical images and de-identified patient records, providing insight on both the progression and the potential treatment of disease. The center will also support training on these tools for clinicians and researchers.

The new center will join a growing WashU ecosystem of collaborative AI initiatives that are helping to shape the future of medicine. These include the Center for Health AI (CHAI), which was established as part of the joint agreement to build deeper collaboration between BJC Health System and WashU Medicine and is focused on making health care more personalized and effective for patients and more efficient for providers; and the AI for Health Institute at WashU McKelvey Engineering, which is working on other AI-powered medical innovations.

The Center for Computational and AI-enabled Imaging Sciences will primarily focus on developing AI-based medical imaging applications that integrate information from different imaging types — ranging from digital microscope images of cells to MRI scans to X-rays — to identify clinically informative connections between them. This may include identifying previously unknown early indicators of disease onset that could allow for more effective clinical interventions.

The center will bring together AI imaging experts and researchers from across the Medical Campus, including Siteman Cancer Center, and from the school’s Departments of Medicine, of Neurology, of Psychiatry and of Radiation Oncology.

A Clear Image of the Future of Medicine

The new center will house information from the imaging databases of all the participating departments, collectively representing a range of imaging modalities across many different types of disease. The AI-powered tools developed from those large datasets will enable increasingly precise diagnosis for individual patients, Woodard said.

AI algorithms applied to medical imaging have already been used to detect and classify new subtypes of some disorders in ways that can guide clinical treatment decisions. The breadth of information that will be available at the new center will accelerate this work in a broader range of conditions.

The new center will be led by Mark Anastasio, PhD, a leading expert in computational imaging science and AI for imaging applications. He joins WashU as the Mallinckrodt Endowed Professor of Imaging Sciences for MIR, where he will also be the Vice Chair for Imaging Sciences and AI Research. He will also be Professor of Electrical & Systems Engineering in McKelvey Engineering. Anastasio comes to WashU from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he has served as head of the Department of Bioengineering for the past six years.

“Institutions with leading academic medical centers that unite medical data, clinical expertise and advanced AI research will lead the next revolution in healthcare,” said Anastasio. “WashU is exactly such an institution and an ideal home for this center that will enable us to build a community to drive innovation that advances patient care in ways few other institutions can achieve.”

As part of that community building, Anastasio will join the leadership team of the Oncologic Imaging Program at Siteman Cancer Center. He will also be the associate Chief Research Information Officer for Biomedical Imaging at the Institute for Informatics, Data Science & Biostatistics (I2DB), where he will work with institute director Philip R.O. Payne, PhD, the Janet and Bernard Becker Professor of Medicine. Payne is also the chief health AI officer for CHAI and the Vice Chancellor for Biomedical Informatics and Data Science at WashU Medicine.

“AI-enabled imaging has the potential to be as transformative for medicine as earlier waves of innovation — from the adoption of electronic health records to the rise of precision medicine and the advent of real-world evidence generation,” said Payne. “That transformation is being realized here at WashU Medicine because of the dynamic and collaborative environment that exists at our institution, exemplified by leading-edge, transdisciplinary initiatives like this one.”

Aaron Bobick, PhD, dean of WashU McKelvey Engineering and the James M. McKelvey Professor, said dedicated centers such as this will be crucial to maximizing the medical and engineering expertise needed to build out the potential for AI in medical applications.

“Medical imaging offers some of the most exciting challenges in imaging science and artificial intelligence, both of which are core domains for McKelvey Engineering,” said Bobick. “I am certain that the innovations that this center will facilitate by combining the skills of WashU Engineering faculty with the broad range of medical expertise at WashU Medicine will lead to advances that both drive the science forward and benefit patients.”

Kim and Tim Eberlein receive Harris Award

Kim and Timothy J. “Tim” Eberlein were honored with the 2025 Jane and Whitney Harris St. Louis Community Service Award during an Aug. 22 luncheon at the Whittemore House.

Mary McKay, vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives at Washington University in St. Louis, hosted the luncheon. Chancellor Andrew D. Martin presented the Eberleins with the award.

“Kim and Tim, we are here to celebrate your service, not just to WashU but to the communities that surround us,” Martin said. “That service ranges from fundraising to volunteer leadership to helping civic organizations do better by the people they serve.”

Tim Eberlein, MD, is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and founding director of Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine. He served as head of the Department of Surgery at WashU Medicine from 1998-2022.

The Harris Award committee selects a couple to receive the annual award, which was established in 2000 in honor of the late Jane and Whitney Harris to recognize couples who contribute to the betterment of the greater St. Louis community in an outstanding manner.

About Kim Eberlein

Kim Eberlein is a civic volunteer committed to connecting the community and supporting the arts. She helped found and co-chair the Women’s Group on Race Relations in 2009, a membership group in support of women from all walks of life in St. Louis, and the Saint Louis Visionary Awards in 2015, an organization that recognizes women’s achievements in the arts.

Eberlein’s commitment to service extends to the WashU community. She has served on several advisory councils at the university, including councils for Arts & Sciences and WashU Medicine. She also served as board chair for the Women’s Society of WashU.

Outside of WashU, she also has served as board chair for several organizations in the greater St. Louis area, including the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Safe Connections. She also served as vice chair of the board for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Eberlein has supported many organizations through board service, including the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Missouri Historical Society and the Women of Achievement Awards.

Her professional career includes many years in health services administration and consulting in public health.

About Tim Eberlein

Tim Eberlein has extended the work of the cancer center into the community in many ways, such as through the cancer center’s advisory committees, community education and screening programs, and partnerships with rural and urban community agencies. He also has worked to secure health-prevention partnerships with the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis.

He has served as chair of leadership giving for the annual campaign of the United Way of Greater St. Louis and on the board of the Saint Louis Science Center. He currently serves on the board of Pedal the Cause, which raises funds for breakthrough cancer research at Siteman Cancer Center and Siteman Kids at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Together, the couple have led fundraisers for the Sheldon Concert Hall, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and The Black Rep.

The couple have a son, Justin (Ashley).

Harris Award recipients are honored with a cash gift made in their name to St. Louis-area charitable organizations of their choice. The Eberleins’ award will support the Saint Louis Dance Theatre, Forest Park Forever and Safe Connections, an organization dedicated to preventing and ending domestic violence through youth education, crisis care and therapy.