Karinna Almodovar-Garcia, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Lovly Lab
Research Description
Karinna’s research work is focused on identifying novel targets for therapy in lung cancer as well as understanding mechanisms of acquired resistance to such therapies. She is currently working on two projects in the lab. One project involves the use of liquid biopsies to study small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Results from this study demonstrated that monitoring circulating free tumor DNA has the potential to improve patient care in patients with SCLC by both earlier detection than current imaging capabilities and identification of targetable mutations that are often difficult, if not impossible, to obtain via tissue biopsy. The second research project is focused on studying lung cancers which harbor ALK gene fusions. This project is focused on: 1) understanding the causes of resistance to ALK inhibitors, and 2) developing rationally-designed combinations of ALK inhibitors with other therapies to delay or reverse drug resistance.
Conference Presentations
Oral presentation at AACR Annual Meeting 2017
Poster presentation at Fourth AACR-IASLC Joint Conference on Lung Cancer
Career Development Activities
Annual Career Symposium, PhD Connection seminar series, and IDP with her postdoctoral mentor every year.
Publications
Almodovar K, Iams WT, Meador CB, et al: Longitudinal Cell-Free DNA Analysis in Patients with Small Cell Lung Cancer Reveals Dynamic Insights into Treatment Efficacy and Disease Relapse. J Thorac Oncol 13:112-123, 2018. PMCID: In progress.