WELCOME TO THE PITARRESI LAB
We study cellular plasticity and tumor-host interactions in pancreatic cancer
The Pitarresi Lab focuses on mechanisms of cellular plasticity that drive tumorigenesis, metastasis, and cell fate decisions. We also develop mouse models to study tumor-host interactions, including cancer cachexia and immunosuppression. We leverage our expertise in mouse modeling, 3D organoid technologies, multi-omic profiling, and state-of-art screening approaches to study the functional consequences of cellular plasticity in pancreatic cancer. We actively seek to translate our basic science discoveries into new therapeutic avenues for pancreatic cancer patients.
To date, our efforts have been applied to discover new drivers of pancreatic cancer metastasis, to unveil the epigenetic landscape of acinar-to-ductal metaplasia (ADM), and to build new pancreatic cancer mouse models that more faithfully represent the human disease.
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Latest News
Jan 2026: Congrats to postdoc Nikita Bhalerao for scoring 3% on the first submission of her K99-R00!
Nov 2025: Congrats to postdoc Nikita Bhalerao for winning the National Pancreas Foundation’s Rising Star Award! Check out this piece written by UMass Chan to hear about the award and what it means to Nikita!
Oct 2025: Congrats to grad student Calvin Johnson for being awarded a talk at the UMass Chan Cancer Bio Retreat and for Jessica Peura for winning the top poster award! Proud PI moment today!!
Sept 2025: Congrats to grad student Jessica Peura for officially being awarded her NIH/NCI F31 Fellowship! Check out this piece written by UMass Chan about Jessica and her research journey!
…and a link to the video the made about Jess
Sept 2025: Congrats to postdoc Nikita Bhalerao for winning an AACR Scholar in Training Award to attend the Pancreatic AACR conference in Boston!
Sept 2025: Excited to present our lab’s cachexia story at the Cancer Cachexia Society meeting!
July 2025: Congrats to Calvin Johnson, graduate student in the lab, for being awarded a competitive spot on the Innate Immunity Training Program T32 at UMass Chan! In addition to being an amazing scientist, Calvin is also an elite Cat 2 cyclist. He is the one in black, attacking the breakaway group below!
June 2025: The Pitarresi lab officially welcomed our 2 new PhD students today! Head over to our “team” page to check out some fun facts about Paula (co-mentored with the Spinelli lab) and Ethan! Excited to have you both on board and watch the team grow...
June 2025: Postdoc Nikita Bhalerao posted her paper on PDAC-associated cachexia on bioRxiv. Check it out!
May 2025: Congrats to postdoc Nikita Bhalerao for being invited to give a talk at the STEMinists meeting! She did a great job!
May 2025: THREE trainees in the lab were chosen for talks at UMass Chan GI Research Day. I was a proud PI today, congrats to Calvin, Nikita, and Jess!
Apr 2025: Congrats to postdoc Nikita Bhalerao for being selected for a Cancer Cachexia Society Talk!
Mar 2025: Our lab’s paper on the role of MCU and mitochondrial calcium signaling in PDAC cellular plasticity was accepted at Cell Reports! Congrats to the whole team!
Jan 2025: Congrats to postdoc in the lab, Nikita Bhalerao, for being awarded a Pancreatic Cancer Alliance Postdoctoral Fellowship!!
Jan 2025: Welcome to our two new rotation students, Hau-Chian (Ethan) Chang and Janhavi Sawant. Head over to the Teams page to learn more about them!
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The Pitarresi Lab is affiliated with the Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Molecular Cell & Cancer Biology, and UMass Cancer Center at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School.
Interested in joining?
We are constantly looking for passionate and talented researchers (postdocs, graduate students, MD and MD/PhD students, undergraduates, and research technicians). Contact Dr. Pitarresi if interested.