ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2024
The Young Physician-Scientist Awards (YPSA) recognize physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research.
About the awardee
Jashodeep Datta, MD is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and a hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgical oncologist at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. As a surgeon-scientist studying myeloid immunobiology in the pancreatic cancer (PDAC) microenvironment, Dr. Datta's laboratory focuses on: (1) deciphering and targeting the dominant tolerogenic myeloid cell-derived signaling mechanisms that govern T-cell dysfunction and stromal inflammation in PDAC; and (2) developing novel nanoengineering strategies to abolish tolerogenic signaling in myeloid-derived suppressor cells to invigorate antitumor immune responses in PDAC. His translational research interests are in leveraging the neoadjuvant platform to discover novel predictive biomarkers of therapeutic response/resistance.
Dr. Datta's laboratory has made important contributions to the field including discovery of: (1) A previously unrecognized cancer cell-Cxcl1:neutrophil-TNF signaling axis that sustains tolerogenic circuitry and stromal inflammation to mediate therapeutic resistance (Cancer Discovery 2023); (2) an immunoregulatory transcriptional signature that encompasses immunologic vulnerabilities driven by KRAS-TP53 cooperativity in PDAC (Oncogene 2022); (3) neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio dynamics as a novel biomarker of chemotherapy response in PDAC (eLife 2022); (4) neutrophil-derived IL-1β as an instigator of chemoresistance via a fibroblast-tumor cell IL6/STAT3 mechanism (eLife 2022); (5) discovery of cancer-associated fibroblast plasticity as a novel mechanism underlying how combined MEK and STAT3 inhibition overcomes resistance to immunotherapy (Gastroenterology 2022), resulting in an investigator-initiated clinical trial (NCT05440942); and (6) a neutrophil-homing nanoengineering strategy to invigorate antitumor immunity in PDAC (J Immunother Cancer 2023 in revision).
Dr. Datta's research has been funded by an NIH KL2 award, American College of Surgeons’ Franklin H. Martin Award, Association for Academic Surgery Joel J. Roslyn Award, Society for Surgical Oncology Young Investigator Award, Elsa U. Pardee Foundation, Pancreatic Cancer Action Network Career Development Award, and the Department of Defense Idea Development Award. Based on these achievements, he was recently installed as the DiMare Family Endowed Chair in Immunotherapy at Miller.