Breast Cancer: Innovative Cancer Treatment and Research at UVA (virtual)

Join Lifetime Learning and UVA healthcare experts for an engaging discussion about an innovative breast cancer treatment tool that uses sound waves for non-invasive therapy. In this program, you will learn about a versatile intervention capable of localized tumor destruction and enhancing the effects of immunotherapy, under investigation in the laboratory of Natasha Sheybani, Ph.D. at UVA. David Brenin, MD, Chief of the Division of Breast and Melanoma Surgical Services, will share how this intervention advances breast cancer treatment.

Faculty Speakers

David R. Brenin, MD, M.C. Wilhelm Professor in Diseases of the Breast and Chief of the Division of Breast and Melanoma Surgical Services, School of Medicine, University of Virginia

David Brenin, MD’s clinical practice specializes in treating breast cancer and benign diseases of the breast. Dr. Brenin is a fellowship-trained breast surgeon and an expert in surgical procedures involving the breast, including lumpectomy, sentinel node biopsy, axillary dissection, nipple-sparing mastectomy, and IORT. His primary research interests include focused ultrasound ablation of breast tumors and immunotherapy. In addition to his clinical functions, Dr. Brenin is the leader of UVA Cancer Center’s weekly multidisciplinary breast conference, chairman of the Commission on Cancer Committee at UVA Cancer Center, and member of the Focuses Ultrasound Surgery Foundation’s Fellowship Advisory Committee and grant review committee.

Natasha Diba Sheybani, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering & Applied Sciences and by courtesy Assistant Professor of Radiology & Medical Imaging, School of Medicine, and Research Director of the UVA Focused Ultrasound Cancer Immunotherapy Center, University of Virginia

Natasha Sheybani leads a translational research program that innovates tools and paradigms for non-invasive precision cancer management. Specifically, her group seeks to advance the role of focused ultrasound (FUS) - a disruptive, emerging strategy for non-invasive, non-ionizing, and precisely targeted deposition of acoustic energy into tumor tissues – for immuno-modulation and immunotherapy delivery in solid cancers of the brain and periphery (e.g., glioblastoma, metastatic breast cancer). With the goal of ushering image-guided therapies like FUS into the burgeoning era of precision immuno-oncology, Sheybani’s lab also applies approaches in systems biology and imaging informatics to advance the role of other non-invasive strategies like liquid biopsy and multimodality imaging techniques (e.g. MRI, immuno-PET), respectively, with the intent of informing risk stratification, therapeutic monitoring, and individualized treatment paradigms involving FUS and/or cancer immunotherapy.