“My students and I work together to analyze novel cancer datasets and seeing the students solve real-world problems and gain independence is extremely rewarding.”
Thanks for agreeing to do this, Jillian. We learned about your ground-breaking work in the summer edition of Report From Newport in an article by Catherine Dolan, ‘23. It begins with an account of two people who had cancer when you were a child. Can you please tell us how that affected you and started you on the path to where you are now?
As a young child, I was sympathetic and compassionate; I was easily moved by the suffering of people or animals. My parents in addition to the community I was raised in instilled a deep-seated importance of helping others. So, when my love and natural abilities in the biological sciences became apparent during my educational years, it had already made sense to go into medicine. However, no advertisements and pleading from others about unseen grief really surpass the first instance of loss in your own life. When my neighbor passed away so quickly from cancer in high school, it became a personal fight. Moreover, when my dear friend in high school told me about his transplant, I was in awe by how complex medicine was becoming. The creativity in medicine began to draw me in to a career I knew I would get gratification and joy from.
You originally planned to become an oncologist, but while studying genetics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute you realized your passion “didn’t lay at the patient’s bedside but rather behind the scenes – contributing to the creation of new cures through research,” according to the article. Can you please elaborate?
I began shadowing oncologists in college, and it may seem like a small part of the job but in oncology cancer care is rarely just about choosing the newest change-driving treatment from a purely medical standpoint; instead, it’s about aligning treatment with the patient’s values and quality-of-life priorities. Also, oncologists are restricted to treating with those therapies approved by the FDA in very specific instances and I realized immediately that an oncologist without a designated time and financial allowance for a research group was not able to create new medicines and move them right into a patient population. I realized that the curiosity and awe I felt for cutting-edge technology and innovation would not be part of my daily life in the clinic. But in the research lab, those possibilities were endless.
Your journey took you to the world-renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas and then overseas. And you also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Again, some more details.
The choice to go to MD Anderson was simple, it is the leading cancer center in the United States, and its graduate program offers the opportunity to work directly with hospital researchers while being fully integrated into patient care. My time there was the most impactful of my career, not only did my research advisor, Dr. Felipe Samaniego have me writing grants and invention disclosures to develop skills in science communication and funding strategy, yet I was also meeting his patients, guiding their families through our laboratories, and delivering lectures to patient support groups. These experiences profoundly shaped the professor I am today, inspiring me to teach a course this fall that will have students practice science communication and present to the Blood Cancer Support group at XXXX.
After my PhD, I set out to learn more about genomics as it seemed cancer mutations were hampering our newest treatment strategies. That led me to Norway, where I joined Dr. June Myklebust, Dr. Erlend Smeland and Dr. Harald Holte, researchers who had worked on pivotal RNA-based understandings of lymphoma types. It was a dream working in Norway, I learned about cutting-edge sequencing technologies, saw awe-inspiring landscapes, and it was the perfect place to start a family. Norway was rated the number one place in the world for mothers to have children and it was charming, rolling my baby stroller right onto transport systems that brought us into the countryside to pick blueberries around lakes.
However, the work opened my eyes to a new challenge: after gathering the massive genomic dataset, how would I visualize and make sense of it? So, I headed back to Boston to train with the cancer geneticist and highly cited computational researcher, Dr. Michael S. Lawrence. At Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) I was given the opportunity to work across multiple cancer types, technologies, was promoted to junior faculty and honored with an HMS faculty development award.
Life can dramatically change even in the middle of a successful career and towards the end of my time at MGH, my son was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition. Shortly after, I was diagnosed with cancer, and my priorities shifted. I started to personally experience how small medical procedures can deeply affect us emotionally, and I began a collaboration with Dr. Shannon Stott, aiming to create blood-based diagnostic tools in cancer.
Your expertise was – and is – genetic mutations and therapy resistance. Can you give us a summary of both?
Cancer is thought to be a disease of uncontrolled growth of cells or a tissue, but how does a cell gain the ability to divide outside of its normal context? There are many possible routes, including hijacking growth signals, ramping up metabolism, and coaxing new blood vessels to feed the tumor. But for these changes to stick, the cells usually need a lasting change. One of the most powerful ways this happens is through changes to the cell’s DNA through mutations that lock in these abnormal behaviors. We know that these mutations happen throughout the course of the cancer as if the cancer is evolving by gaining new mutations. When we develop a new novel therapy and apply it to a patient in the clinic, if there are some cancer cells that have a mutation that helps them survive this therapy, then those cells persist; this is a large part of therapy resistance. A large part of my research program’s goal is to track how a tumor’s genetic instructions (its DNA and RNA) change while a patient is receiving treatment. We’re looking for patterns that may suggest common changes that help the cancer outsmart our newest therapies. From there are long-term goal is to search for less invasive ways to keep tabs on these changes, like a blood test instead of a biopsy. Importantly, we would like to design combination treatments that wipe out the cells that are gaining these common changes before they can return as a relapse.
Your son was diagnosed with a rare condition that changed your course. Please tell us about him and where you headed after the diagnosis.
My son is a joyful young boy who loves sports, his friends, and strategy games. However, we started to realize some walking and fall issues around the age of two and went through a difficult diagnosis journey to find out he has collagen VI-related muscular dystrophy. This is a progressive muscle-wasting disorder that he has had since birth, but we were unaware of. Having a child given a life-limiting diagnosis is devastating for any family. Yet, my journey in processing that news was unique, as I had the scientific background to understand what was happening in his genome, I already had connections in the rare disease community, and I knew that many breakthroughs in cancer treatments often pave the way for therapies in other diseases like his. That combination of knowledge gave me a different perspective on how I would face this diagnosis, and my family and I created a charity, COL6FUND https://www.col6fund.org/, to raise funds for scientific research and therapies. Despite the obvious devastation, I feel deeply grateful for the community that has rallied around us by raising funds for research, scientists and institutions who believe in our ideas, like the NIH’s Bonnemann Lab and The Jackson Laboratory, and supporting us through programs like Spaulding and the Dunkin’ Joy in Childhood Foundation, which has brought Wesley so much love and unforgettable adventures. As for how it changed my career course, I realized I needed a role that gave me the flexibility to pursue the scientific questions I felt most drawn to, the space to manage the many medical appointments and complexities that come with caring for a child with a physical disability, and a community rooted in compassion that could walk alongside us in this journey.
Today you are an assistant professor in Salve’s Department of Biology and Biomedical Sciences. What are your responsibilities in that role and what courses do you teach?
At Salve, I get to wear a few different hats, and I love the variety. One part of my job is service, and I currently serve on our university’s Internal Review Board, which means I help review and approve research projects.
Another big part of my role is teaching, I teach sophomore-level Genetics (a requirement for all Biology majors), along with courses in Bioinformatics and Cancer Immunology. I also mentor students through an independent research course, which is always exciting because it blends classroom learning with hands-on skill development.
That, of course, leads to my final and favorite responsibility, research. My students and I work together to analyze novel cancer datasets and seeing the students solve real-world problems and gain independence is extremely rewarding.
Tell us about your current research.
Currently, I dabble in a few cancer computational projects, but my largest goal is to develop a machine learning algorithm and tool for detecting DNA and RNA changes in blood that may help us detect and monitor pediatric brain cancer. Children with brain cancer are vulnerable and can suffer long-term effects from cancer treatment; we would like to avoid them needing brain surgeries. My colleague at MGH has developed a small device capable of trying to strengthen the signal of cancer cells present in the blood. We are able to see the presence of cancer cells from medulloblastoma, a childhood brain cancer, in a portion of children with the disease. If we could monitor their responses through simple blood draws, we could avoid complicated and life-threatening surgeries.
And your students’ enthusiasm.
One of the things I adore about teaching at Salve Regina University is the kind of students we attract. Drawn to the Mercy Mission, they are compassionate and eager to use their education to make a difference in people’s lives. When they hear about research that could help children facing devastating diagnoses, for many students, their interest is instantly sparked. My research students take on the challenge of learning to code, which I often compare to learning a new language. There’s new vocabulary to memorize and a new kind of “grammar” to understand. It’s not an easy task, but my students approach it with determination. Witnessing them feel the thrill of creating a one-of-a-kind visualization of complex data, or running a program that can analyze massive datasets in just a few lines of code, brings a refreshing energy to my day. What amazes me most is how quickly they go from learners to confident presenters. They share their work at conferences with energy and pride.
The Report From Newport story ends with a quote from you: “Salve’s mission is about taking care of others and that is what my lab is all about – alleviating that unnecessary burden of health care versus other unjust societal issues.” Why is that so important?
Alleviating the pain of others gives me a deep sense of purpose. It reminds me that we are all interconnected and that our lives can create significant change for those around us. I’ve always wanted my career, where I spend so much of my time, to be grounded in that sense of purpose. My hope is to continue this work for as long as possible, and to also provide students and other researchers with a path toward feeling impactful in ways that are meaningful to them.
Finally, take a peek into the future. Will science one day be able to conquer cancer?
I am not sure I see ‘conquer’ in the sense of total eradication is possible, but I do see a bright future where early monitoring, through both personal and hospital devices, allows us to catch changes quickly and guide personalized treatments that adapt as the disease evolves. One day, treating cancer may feel as manageable and routine as treating the flu or other common illnesses.
Copyright © 2025 Salve Regina University. Originally published by OceanStateStories.org.
