UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Faculty News

Devin Dressman, PhD, joined UPMC Hillman Cancer Center as associate director for research operations and strategic alliances. He earned his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh and completed his postdoctoral fellowship in cancer genetics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Dr. Dressman oversees the Hillman research pavilion, located at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Shadyside, and develops external partnerships to benefit faculty-driven cancer research.

Olivera Finn, PhD, received the 2019 Richard V. Smalley, MD, Memorial Award and Lectureship, the most prestigious award bestowed by the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC). The award honors those who have been pioneers in their work and have made a notable impact worthy of high regard by their peers. As part of her award, Dr. Finn served as a primary keynote presenter at the SITC Annual Meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, in November. 

Antoinette Wozniak, MD, FACP, FASCO, was recently appointed editor-in-chief for Clinical Lung Cancer in recognition of her outstanding contrib-utions in the field. Dr. Wozniak received her medical degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine in Buffalo and completed her internship and residency at SUNY at Buffalo Affiliated Hospitals in Buffalo. She then completed a fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida.

Dario A. Vignali, PhD, and his group recently published a study in Immunity that provides new insight into how regulatory T cells (Tregs) shape the tumor microenvironment to aid tumor immune evasion. Dr. Vignali and his team discovered that Tregs promote a tumor permissive macrophage population by manipulating their metabolism, revealing a new drug target that could improve the efficacy of checkpoint blockade. Learn more about the study: Liu C, Chikina M, Deshpande R, Menk AV, Wang T, Tabib T, Brunazzi EA, Vignali KA, Sun M, Stolz DB, Lafyatis RA, Chen W, Delgoffe GM, Workman CJ, Wendell SG, Vignali DAA. Treg Cells Promote the SREBPI-Dependent Metabolic Fitness of Tumor-Promoting Macrophages Via Repression of CD8+ T Cell-Derived Interferon-g. Immunity. 2019; 51(2): 381-397. 

Jason Luke, MD, FACP, joined UPMC Hillman Cancer Center as director of the Cancer Immunotherapeutics Center, a new initiative that aims to accelerate early-phase clinical trials and give patients access to novel immunotherapies. Dr. Luke is a medical oncologist and clinical investigator specializing in melanoma and advanced solid tumors. He received his medical degree from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science/Chicago Medical School and completed his internship and residency at Boston University Medical Center, followed by fellowships at Weill Cornell Medical College and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

Learn more about the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.