Research

The Division of Surgical Oncology's care has an active basic science and clinical research program. Our multidisciplinary approach benefits from the involvement of colleagues from several departments across the UC San Diego School of Medicine. Most of our studies use molecularly targeted or other novel therapeutics not offered anywhere else in the nation.

Current research topics include:

Targeting ubiquitin-like modifications to develop novel cancer therapy.
Unraveling the molecular and cellular underpinnings of rare cancers — especially gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) — to develop more effective, personalized treatments.
Fluorescence-guided surgery, including developing novel fluorescent probes to label tumors to make them easier to detect during surgery.
Pancreatic cancer, including early detection and diagnostics, single-cell multi-omics analysis to study molecular mechanisms that drive cancer development, progression and drug resistance, and novel therapeutic approaches.
Surgical management of patients with peritoneal surface malignancies, novel surgical and systemic treatments for melanoma and other skin cancers, and the surgical education of medical students.

Publications