Valsamo Anagnostou, MD, PhD, Torrey Coast Foundation GEMINI CLIP Investigator

To address unmet needs, Dr. Anagnostou proposes to study the evolving ecosystem of gastroesophageal cancer during immune checkpoint blockade by tissue multi-omic analyses and liquid biopsies for circulating tumor DNA monitoring. Her approach has the potential to transform patient selection and minimal residual disease monitoring strategies for cancer immunotherapy for patients with gastroesophageal cancer as well as inform the development of novel immunotherapy approaches.  

Over the past few decades, there have been limited therapeutic advances in the clinical management of patients with resectable gastroesophageal cancers, with most patients experiencing disease progression and death within 5 years from diagnosis. Recently, the FDA approved nivolumab in the adjuvant setting for patients with completely resected gastroesophageal cancer and residual pathologic disease after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. This represented a paradigm shift in the management of operable disease for these patients. While the integration of immunotherapy in the therapeutic armamentarium of gastroesophageal cancer is of paramount importance, there is an urgent unmet clinical need to bridge clinical and laboratory research, bringing precision in immuno-oncology for patients with gastroesophageal cancers to identify individuals at high risk for disease recurrence based on analyses of liquid biopsies.  

Projects and Grants

Integrative multi-omics to elucidate the molecular wiring of response and resistance to neoadjuvant immune checkpoint blockade in gastroesophageal cancer

This project will be funded by the Torrey Coast Foundation’s Gemini Project. 

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine | Esophageal Cancer | 2023

Study of Molecular Response Adaptive Immuno-Chemotherapy in Patients with NSCLC (NCT04093167)

Johns Hopkins University Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center | Lung Cancer | 2019