Following undergraduate education at the “Federico II” University of Naples and graduate education at the Institute for Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria, Dr Pasca di Magliano moved to the US to pursue postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr Matthias Hebrok at the University of California, San Francisco, where she studies the role of embryonic signaling pathways in pancreatic cancer. Dr Pasca di Magliano was recruited to the University of Michigan in 2008.
Her independent laboratory generated a genetically engineered mouse model where oncogenic Kras, the hallmark mutation of pancreatic cancer, could be expressed in a tissue-specific, inducible and reversible manner, the iKras model. The iKras model provided proof-of-principle of Kras dependence in advanced pancreatic cancer and revealed a non-autonomous role of oncogenic Kras in shaping the tumor microenvironment.
More recently, the Pasca di Magliano laboratory incorporated bioinformatics approaches to query the microenvironment of human pancreatic cancer samples, and published one of the early large scale single cell RNA sequencing studies on pancreatic cancer, as well as establishing a robust patient derived organoid programs. In collaboration with colleagues at the University of Michigan, her laboratory applied similar techniques to the normal pancreas, identifying widespread precursor lesions in the general population independently from age. Further, her team identified unexpected heterogeneity among precursor lesions. Her group is now investigating causes of early lesions progression to cancer, with the ultimate goal of preventing pancreatic cancer. Dr Pasca di Magliano’s work centers on collaborative team science bringing together basic scientists and clinicians, and her laboratory seeks to train the next generation of cancer researchers.