Research Team

Joshi Alumkal is co-leader of Project 2 (Targeting Emergent Vulnerabilities in AR-Inactive Prostate Cancer). Dr. Alumkal received his MD from Baylor College of Medicine, completed his Internal Medicine residency training at UT Southwestern Medical Center, and completed his Medical Oncology fellowship training at Johns Hopkins University. He was appointed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at OHSU in 2007 and Molecular and Medical Genetics in 2010. He was named Co-Leader of the OHSU Prostate Cancer Research Program in 2012.Dr. Alumkal is now the Leader of the Prostate/Genitourinary Medical Oncology Section and Associate Division Chief for Basic Research in the Hematology-Oncology Division and Professor with tenure in the Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Alumkal is also a member of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center and Director of Epigenetic Therapy in the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology. Dr. Alumkal’s main goal is to link laboratory and clinical scientists in order to develop more effective treatments for patients with advanced cancers, including men with prostate cancer whom he treats.

Tomasz (Tom) Beer, MD, FACP, is a contributor Project 2 (Targeting Emergent Vulnerabilities in AR-Inactive Prostate Cancer). Dr. Beer is a  Professor of Medicine and Grover C. Bagby Endowed Chair for Prostate Cancer Research in the Division of Hematology & Medical Oncology, where he leads the Prostate Cancer Research Program, encompassing basic research, translational research, clinical trials of novel therapeutic strategies in prostate cancer, and studies aimed at enhancing cancer survivorship. Dr. Beer is particularly known for investigations of targeted therapies and immunotherapies in prostate cancer, including vitamin D receptor, the androgen receptor, CTLA-4 and PD-1 inhibitors, PSMA and others. Dr. Beer cares for men with prostate cancer at OHSU and at the Portland VA Medical Center.

Heather H. Cheng, MD, PhD, is a co-leader of Project 1 (Molecular Predictors of Prostate Cancer Progression and Mortality). Dr. Heather Cheng focuses on improving the care of patients with prostate and bladder cancers. Dr. Cheng is the director of Fred Hutch's Prostate Cancer Genetics Clinic, which helps bring leading-edge genetic and genomic discoveries to patients. Among the first of its kind in the country, the clinic provides genetic counseling and testing, matches patients with precision oncology clinical trials and provides opportunities for cancer prevention and early detection. She is studying ways to use genetics to guide the care of prostate cancer patients and their family members who may also be at high risk for the disease. Dr. Cheng leads clinical trials of a variety of new treatments for prostate cancer. She is also developing new tests that could help guide doctors’ choice of treatment for each patient and new blood tests to detect and monitor the progression of prostate cancer. 

Eva Corey PhD is Co-Director of Core B (Biospecimen and Pathology Core) of the PNW Prostate Cancer SPORE. Dr. Corey is a Research Professor in the UW Medical School’s Department of Urology and Co-Director of GU Cancer Research Laboratory. Her major research interests are investigation of mechanisms of development of advanced prostate cancer, ADT resistance and bone metastasis. She has also been involved in establishment and characterization of prostate cancer patient-derived xenografts and their use in preclinical settings to evaluate efficacy of new treatment modalities for this disease. GU Cancer Laboratory is one of a very few laboratories worldwide with multiple prostate cancer PDXs.

Dr. Mads Daugaard is co-leader of Project 3 (Oncofetal Glycosaminoglycans as Molecular Targets in Prostate Cancer) of the PNW Prostate Cancer SPORE. He is a molecular biologist specialized in tumour-associated stress signaling pathways and tumour targeting systems. He earned his PhD degree from the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen, for his studies on heat shock proteins in relation to cancer cell survival mechanisms. After completing his PhD, Dr. Daugaard received a junior fellowship award to continue his work at the Danish Cancer Society Research Centre on stress signaling pathways related to DNA damage response mechanisms. In 2010, Dr. Daugaard received a research award from the Danish Cancer Society Scientific Committee to do postdoctoral training in molecular pathology at the BC Cancer Research Centre and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia.

Ruth Etzioni is an affiliate professor of biostatistics and health services at the University of Washington and a member of Fred Hutch. Dr. Etzioni directs Core C (Biostatistics and Analytics Core) of the PNW Prostate Cancer SPORE. Dr. Etzioni and her colleagues were among the first to formally evaluate the test’s ability to distinguish between true cancers and benign conditions. They have concluded that a variation on the PSA test that uses two types of PSA measurements could improve the test’s accuracy for men with borderline-normal total PSA levels, potentially leading to a significant drop in medical costs and complications for this group of men.  Etzioni and colleagues have also determined that roughly one-third of older men diagnosed with prostate cancer through the PSA test are “overdiagnosed” with the disease, meaning patients are receiving unnecessary surgeries or other treatments even though the disease isn’t likely to threaten their health. Dr. Etzioni’s work currently focuses on the development and implementation of statistical methods for prostate cancer studies. In the past, she has worked on assessing the efficacy of PSA screening from population studies, estimating the frequency of overdiagnosis associated with PSA, evaluating novel prostate cancer biomarkers, and tracking patterns and outcomes of prostate cancer care. Her work in prostate cancer surveillance is conducted as part of the Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET). As leader of the biostatistics core for the Northwest Prostate Cancer SPORE, Dr. Etzioni has developed methods for analyzing immunohistochemical studies, and combining results from microarray experiments, while working with SPORE investigators to select the most appropriate design and analysis approaches for a broad array of studies. She is an affiliate investigator on the Data Management Coordination Center for the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) and continues to work with EDRN statisticians on methods for biomarker development. In addition to these projects, her current interests include modeling the development of resistance to androgen ablation therapy.

Martin Gleave is co-leader of Project 3 (Targeting SEMA3C in Castration Resistant Prostate Cancer) of the PNW Prostate Cancer SPORE, and is a member of the SPORE Executive Committee. He also serves as the Executive Director of the Vancouver Prostate Centre, the Chief Executive Officer of PC-TRIADD, a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Urologic Sciences at UBC, and the BC Leadership Chair in Prostate Cancer Research. Dr. Gleave is a clinician-scientist and urologic surgeon, and his major research focus involves the study of cellular and molecular mechanisms mediating progression of prostate cancer to its lethal stage of androgen independence, and use of this information to develop integrated multimodality therapies that specifically target these mechanisms. Dr. Gleave established a role for clusterin as a cancer-related cell survival protein involved in treatment resistance and developed an inhibitor, designated OGX-011, which improved efficacy of hormone- and chemo-therapies in prostate and other cancer models. He is the scientific founder of OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc.

John Gore is co-director of Core D (Clinical Core) of the PNW Prostate Cancer SPORE, and is an Assistant Professor in the Urology Department at the University of Washington, School of Medicine. He is also co-director of UroSCOAP, a regional urological quality collaborative in Washington State, which aims to improve prostate cancer care regionally. He graduated summa cum laude in chemistry and biology from the University of Minnesota, and earned his MD from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX. He completed his general and urologic surgery training at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Subsequently, Dr. Gore was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar, training in health services research with a focus on quality of care, quality of life, and advanced econometric methods. He earned his Masters of Science in Health Services (MSHS) from the UCLA School of Public Health. Dr. Gore is one of only a handful of physician-scientists in the United States who are clinically trained in urologic oncology and fellowship trained in Health Services Research. Dr. Gore has focused his research on studying issues of access to care and quality of care for patients with urologic cancers.

Ming Lam, PhD, is a co-investigator for Project 2 (Targeting Emergent Vulnerabilities in AR-Inactive Prostate Cancer). is a Research Associate Professor at the GU Cancer Research Lab. Dr. Lam’s research program is to uncover the biology underlying distant metastases and treatment response, and identify actionable targets for castration-resistant prostate cancer and bladder cancer, with a goal to rationally devise novel therapeutic strategies to improve survivorship of patients affected by cancer. Her focus areas include:

• Tumor interaction with microenvironment at metastatic sites.
• Identification of treatment response and resistance.

Dan Lin is co-director of Core A (Leadership & Administration) of the PNW Prostate Cancer SPORE, a member of the SPORE Executive Committee. He is a Professor of Urology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Chief of Urologic Oncology, and a urologist specializing in genitourinary oncology, prostate cancer early detection and prevention. Dr. Lin’s research currently focuses on the molecular mechanisms of prostate carcinogenesis and biomarkers of prostate cancer progression. In addition to his SPORE research, Dr. Lin is co-PI on a nationwide phase III clinical trial administered through the VA Puget Sound Healthcare System investigating the efficacy of adjuvant chemotherapy to prevent progression in patients at high risk for relapse after radical prostatectomy; PI on a multi-institutional study (through the Canary Foundation) to discover and confirm biomarkers that predict aggressive disease in a prospective cohort of men on active surveillance; co-investigator on a study investigating the synergistic targeting of androgen receptor and androgen metabolism in prostate cancer; PI on a project to use an in vivo human intervention model to evaluate the mechanisms underlying the associations of sulforaphane and Brassica vegetables with reduced prostate cancer risk; co-investigator on a multi-center, retrospective tissue microarray (TMA) study to evaluate tissue biomarkers for their ability to predict recurrent prostate cancer at the time of radical prostatectomy (RP), and co-PI on a project to model active surveillance strategies to optimize outcomes and patient decision-making.

Bruce Montgomery is co-leader of Project 4 (Clinical Development of Therapeutic Strategies Targeting DNA Damage Repair) of the PNW Prostate Cancer SPORE. Dr. Montgomery made the switch from laboratory research to patient care and clinical research because he wanted to work with the prostate cancer team at UW Medicine and Fred Hutch. “It was the opportunity to work with the amazing team at in the Program in Prostate Cancer Research, that first attracted me to doing research in prostate cancer and ultimately to doing clinical trials and treating patients,” says Dr. Montgomery. He divides his time between seeing patients at the Prostate Center and research. He is a medical oncologist, an associate professor at UW Medicine, and an associate member of Fred Hutch. Dr. Montgomery’s clinical expertise includes neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy, and resistance to hormonal and chemotherapy.

Colm Morrissey, PhD is co-director of Core B (Biospecimen and Pathology Core), co-leader of Project 2 (Targeting Emergent Vulnerabilities in AR-Inactive Prostate Cancer) of the PNW Prostate Cancer SPORE and is a member of the SPORE Executive Committee. Dr. Morrissey serves as a research associate professor in the UW Medical School’s department of urology. His research interests include:

• Providing biospecimen infrastructure for the study of prostate cancer. These ongoing efforts have led to the development of a large serum/plasma and tissue bank that contains thousands of well documented clinical specimens, including bone and soft tissue metastases acquired through our rapid autopsy program.
• Biomarkers for the detection of prostate cancer and those useful in monitoring the clinical course of the disease. These include markers that are secreted or cell associated which could be helpful in predicting the aggressiveness of the tumor.
• The biology of prostate cancer dissemination and growth in bone, including the study of the bone microenvironment and factors which perturb normal bone remodeling and lead to the characteristic osteoblastic response.
• Identifying and developing targeted treatments for the emerging castration-resistant lethal androgen receptor-null phenotype of prostate cancer