Breast & Melanoma Research
The Breast and Melanoma Division focuses their research on clinical trials aimed to personalize and improve the treatment of breast cancer, melanoma immunology and cancer vaccine development.
Clinical Research
The Showalter lab focuses on clinical trials aimed to personalize and improve the treatment of breast cancer.
The NIH funded grant aims to improve the efficacy of intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) for the treatment of early stage breast cancer, to investigate the immune effects of breast radiation therapy, and to evaluate the comparative effectiveness and costs of an advanced form of breast IORT. IORT is an emerging alternative to whole breast irradiation (WBI), but its current embodiment has several deficiencies including the lack of imaging for target delineation and planning, and poor dosimetry due to the use of low-energy photons. This proposal leverages advanced CT-guided, high dose-rate brachytherapy techniques to develop Precision Breast IORT (PB-IORT), a novel method that improves upon conventional breast IORT (CB-IORT) through customized, three-dimensional treatment planning and delivery for higher dose, accurate, individualized IORT that better targets the breast tissue.
The lab is also running an investigator initiated trial: A pilot Study of Neoadjuvant Endocrine Therapy Tolerance to Inform Treatment decisions for adjuvant Radiation in Geriatric Early Stage ER+ Breast Cancer. This project takes a novel treatment approach of the assessment o patient tolerance during three months of neoadjuvant endocrine therapy and examines if this information can be used to guide treatment decisions and predict adherence to adjuvant endocrine therapy.
The Showalter Lab also works in collaboration with members of the School of Public Health Sciences on outcomes data projects. Multiple projects are ongoing and will provide preliminary data for future work.
David Brenin, MD
434-924-2625
David Brenin, MD
David Brenin, MD, FACS is chief of breast surgery, co-director of both the UVA Breast Care Program and the High-Risk Breast and Ovarian Cancer Clinic and is an associate professor of surgery at UVA’s School of Medicine. His research interests include breast surgery and focused ultrasound ablation of breast tumors.
Kim Bullock, Phd, CCRP
Kim Bullock is Director of the Protocol Development Team for the University of Virginia Cancer Center, Office of Clinical Research and the Human Immune Therapy Center. She specializes in writing and implementing oncology-based, investigator-initiated clinical trials, and provides research support for clinical and research faculty in the Department and the Cancer Center to develop their clinical trial research programs.
Lynn T. Dengel, MD
Lynn Dengel, MD
Dr. Dengel has authored and co-authored several articles in leading peer-reviewed publications, including the Annals of Surgical Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Annals of Surgery. She has received recognition for her research, including the Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Merit Award, supported by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and the Harvey Baker Traveling Fellow Award from the Society of Surgical Oncology.
Shayna L. Showalter, MD
Dr. Showalter’s research interests include comparative effectiveness research, patient-centered research, clinical trials, and high risk prostate cancer.
Craig L. Slingluff Jr., MD
Dr. Slingluff’s research work includes laboratory studies and clinical trials, focused primarily on developing melanoma vaccines and combination immunotherapy, with extensive correlative studies. Since 1996, he has run 19 investigator-initiated clinical trials, most of which have been for melanoma vaccines, especially involving melanoma peptides. These studies have all included intensive immunologic correlates based on evaluating immunologic response in multiple tissue compartments. A major focus of his work now is on characterizing the metastatic melanoma microenvironment, especially including the molecular mediators of immune dysfunction versus tumor rejection.
Basic & Translational Research
Dr. Slingluff’s research focuses on melanoma immunology and cancer vaccine development. His primary research focus in melanoma immunology and cancer vaccine research is includes the development and optimization of melanoma vaccines, in combination with other immune modulators.
Dr. Slingluff’s research program is intensely translational, with basic laboratory analyses of human tissue on one hand and numerous clinical trials of melanoma treatment on the other. He has had continuous NIH-NCI funding for both laboratory studies and human clinical trials since 1992.
Dr. Slingluff has a breadth of experience in all aspects of translational and clinical trials research, including 11 active IND applications with the FDA, and technology transfer with licensed patents. He has national leadership roles as co-chair of the Melanoma Committee of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group. He has institutional leadership roles in establishing and directing the Human Immune Therapy Center (HITC) since its inception.
As a clinician-investigator, he has developed young investigators in patient-oriented research or research with human tissues, where laboratory and clinical environments are closely interactive. Areas of interest include 1) melanoma immunology and cancer vaccines, 2) combination targeted therapies for melanoma, and 3) novel imaging technology for melanoma.
Kim Bullock, Phd, CCRP
Kim Bullock is Director of the Protocol Development Team for the University of Virginia Cancer Center, Office of Clinical Research and the Human Immune Therapy Center. She specializes in writing and implementing oncology-based, investigator-initiated clinical trials, and provides research support for clinical and research faculty in the Department and the Cancer Center to develop their clinical trial research programs.
Craig L. Slingluff Jr., MD
Dr. Slingluff’s research work includes laboratory studies and clinical trials focused primarily on developing melanoma vaccines and combination immunotherapy with extensive correlative studies. Since 1996, he has led over 30 investigator-initiated clinical trials, most of which have been for melanoma vaccines, especially involving melanoma peptides. These studies have all included intensive immunologic correlates based on evaluating immunologic response in multiple tissue compartments. A major focus of his work now is on characterizing the metastatic melanoma microenvironment, especially including the molecular mediators of immune dysfunction versus tumor rejection. He has published over 190 manuscripts reporting his research, in peer-reviewed journals with high impact, including Science, Science Immunology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research and Annals of Surgery.