Welcome to Winship
Meet four of Winship’s outstanding research scientists whose day-to-day work is changing the game in important ways for people with cancer.
Anant Madabhushi, PhD
Anant Madabhushi, PhD
Photo: Jack Kearse
Madabhushi is a global leader in developing artificial intelligence to improve outcomes for individuals with cancer and other diseases. He is a professor in the Walter H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Biomedical Informatics (BMI) and Pathology at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, as well as a Cancer Immunology researcher at Winship and a research health scientist at the Atlanta Veterans Administration Medical Center.
Q. Why did you come to Winship?
A. Winship Cancer Institute is a top-ranked NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. As a cancer center, it is highly committed to clinical trials. While there is a significant amount of research ongoing in AI and oncology, there has been relatively little validation of these approaches in a prospective trial setting. It is clear that the culture at Winship is to help in the utility of these AI tools in a clinical decision support setting and developing prospective clinical trials that will include these tools.
I was looking for an environment where the focus was not just on cutting-edge and innovative research, which Winship has a lot of, but also a culture of deployment and translation of technologies, which was my main attraction in choosing to come to Winship.”
Susan C. Modesitt, MD
Susan C. Modesitt, MD
Photo: Jack Kearse
Modesitt specializes in the treatment of gynecologic malignancies and leads Winship’s gynecologic oncology program. She is the gynecologic team leader and chair of Winship’s Protocol Review and Monitoring Committee. She is director of the Gynecologic Oncology Division and the Leach/Hendee Professor in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Emory University School of Medicine and is editorin- chief of Gynecologic Oncology Reports.
Q. Why did you come to Winship?
A. Emory has always had a special place in my heart as I was incredibly fortunate to have attended Emory College as a Woodruff scholar and compete as a varsity diver. That outstanding Emory education served as an amazing springboard into my subsequent medical career. As a bonus, at Emory I met my husband, Kacy Burnsed, who was also a Woodruff scholar and a Georgia native.
During the 30-plus years since graduation, we had always kept an eye out for potential opportunities, and I watched Winship Cancer Institute blossom into an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in the last decade. It was clear that there was substantial and sustained institutional commitment to support the innovative and groundbreaking work in Winship. It was simply too good to pass up the chance to build a worldclass gynecologic oncology program at my alma mater that encompasses state-of-the-art clinical care, access to cancer trials for treatment and prevention, as well as training for the next generation of physicians to care for women with gynecologic malignancies. I am so excited about what the future holds for our patients as we continue to expand, especially with the opening of Winship at Emory Midtown in May.
Mehmet A. Bilen, MD
Mehmet A. Bilen, MD
Photo: Jenni Girtman
Bilen is a board-certified medical oncologist actively involved in clinical research and patient care in the area of genitourinary cancers. He directs Winship’s Genitourinary Medical Oncology Program and is a member of Winship’s Discovery and Developmental Therapeutics Research Program. He is associate professor in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine.
Q. What insights have emerged from Winship’s Genitourinary Medical Oncology Program that have “changed the game” for one or more genitourinary cancers?t?
A. At the GU Med Onc group, one of our biggest goals is to bring new drugs and treatment options to our patients through clinical trials. We have several early phase and investigator-initiated trials within our group that will provide unique opportunities for our patients, such as investigating novel treatment combinations for kidney cancer, bladder cancer and prostate cancer that are leading toward FDA approval.
We are also using advanced imaging and novel technology to guide us in selecting treatment for our patients. We are including extensive correlative work to our clinical trials with our basic scientists, which allows for biomarker discovery and facilitates translational research, “bench to bedside and back to bench.” Ultimately, we are working on choosing the right treatment for the right patient to maximize efficacy and minimize toxicity.
Gregory B. Lesinski, PhD, MPH
Gregory B. Lesinski, PhD, MPH
Photo: Kay Hinton
Lesinski oversees and directs the development and growth of Winship’s basic science activities across the cancer center’s four research programs. Lesinski, PhD, MPH, is Winship’s associate director for basic research and shared resources, co-director of the Translational GI Malignancy Program, and professor and vice chair for basic research in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine.
Q. What insights have emerged from Winship’s basic research that have “changed the game” for cancer in some way?
A. The goal of the Translational GI Malignancy Program’s research is to enhance the ability of the immune system to recognize and eliminate pancreatic cancer. This disease has a high prevalence within the state of Georgia, and its incidence is rising rapidly. Unless these tumors are caught early and surgically resected, they are typically very aggressive, and existing therapeutic approaches are, unfortunately, not effective for all patients.
At Winship, we have assembled a multidisciplinary team to study the biology of these tumors and test new therapeutic strategies that target the immune system. Using patient samples and technologies in the laboratory, our group has identified new ways by which pancreatic cancer shields itself from attack by the immune system and secretes other proteins, called cytokines, that render immunotherapy less effective in patients. In particular, we showed that one cytokine, known as interleukin-6 (IL-6), is produced in abundance by pancreatic tumors and can be blocked to enhance the effectiveness of immunotherapy in pre-clinical studies.
These laboratory discoveries have led to a new first-in-human clinical trial at Winship, testing the combined blockade of IL-6 and immunotherapy targeting the PD-1 protein on immune cells for patients with pancreatic cancer. We are hopeful patients benefit from this treatment approach and that in using clinical samples from this trial, we are able to identify markers of response or resistance to therapy that can inform a new therapeutic approach in this aggressive cancer.
