Tumor Microenvironment: Cellular, Metabolic and Immunologic Interactions

Dr. Debabrata (Debu) Banerjee, Ph.D., is an Emeritus Professor, Rutgers University having retired as Assistant Dean, School of Graduate Studies and an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Rutgers University. He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the New York Medical College, positions he has held since 2002. Prior to this, he was an Associate Lab Member at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York.  Dr. Banerjee obtained a PhD in Biochemistry from Calcutta University and also served as an Adjunct Lecturer for the Department of Biochemistry at Calcutta University. Dr. Banerjee completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship training in the Department of Biology, McGill University, Canada. He has published over 100 peer reviewed research articles in scientific journals.  In addition, to his academic appointments, Debu serves as a Member of the Editorial Board for journals Cancers, Cells, PLoS, World Journal of Stem Cells and Current Signal Transduction and Therapy. He is a Reviewer for the journals: Cancer Research, Oncogene, Clinical Cancer Research, Gynecologic Oncology, Journal of Cancer Chemotherapy, British Journal of Cancer, Stem Cells, and Blood. He has extensive experience in preclinical drug development. He has also been awarded 5 patents for his scientific innovations. Raj K. Tiwari is currently a Professor and Graduate Program Director at New York Medical College’s Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology and the Department of Otolaryngology. He was interim Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology for over 3 years.  Tiwari received his BS in Chemistry at St. Xavier’s College in Calcutta, his Masters in Biochemistry at Calcutta University, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Calcutta University.  Tiwari has an internationally recognized profile for his contributions in Cancer Biology on the early observations of the JAK/STAT pathway, use of peptides mimotopes as Cancer Vaccines and more recently on the Cell-Cell communication in the tumor microenvironment. His focus is on a variety of Cancers, Breast, Prostate, Melanoma and Thyroid. He teaches immunology to medical and graduate students and take pride in successfully mentoring a large number of graduate students, clinical fellows and junior faculty.

• 1. Inflammatory components of the thyroid cancer microenvironment - an avenue for identification of novel biomarkers.-  2. Disruption of Cell-Cell Communication in Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer as an Immunotherapeutic Opportunity.- 3. Exosomes in the Healthy and Malignant Bone Marrow Microenvironment.- 4. Structural Biology of the Tumor Microenvironment.- 5. Metabolic interactions between tumor and stromal cells in the Tumor Microenvironment.- 6.  Interacting Genetic Lesions of Melanoma in the Tumor Microenvironment:  Defining a Viable Therapy.- 7. Non-coding RNAs in Papillary Thyroid Cancer: Interaction with cancer associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in the Tumor Microenvironment (TME) and regulators of differentiation and Lymph Node Metastasis.