Research Summary

I am an academic neuro-oncologist involved in clinical care, clinical research and teaching. I have formal training and extensive experience in clinical trial design, implementation and analysis, including investigator-initiated, sponsored and multi-institutional consortium and cooperative group studies testing new treatments and treatment combinations in gliomas. I am Vice-Chair of the Cancer Center’s Protocol Review and Monitoring Committee (PRMC). My current research foci include (1) precision medicine approaches to glioma treatment, (2) immunotherapy, in particular development of novel CAR-T therapies in glioma in collaboration with Drs. Hideho Okada and Wendell Lim, and (3) evaluation of serial blood immune profiles as a marker of clinical outcome in glioblastoma patients, using methylation arrays. I am a Co-Associate Director of the Clinical Core for the UCSF (P01) Program Project Grant  focused on integrating advances in physiologic and metabolic imaging with tissue biomarkers in order to optimize the management of patients with molecular subtypes of glioma. In addition, I am co-PI of projects both in the UCSF Brain Tumor Center’s U19 grant in collaboration with Northwestern University and in the UCSF Brain Tumor Center’s SPORE grant.

Education

California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, CA, B.S., 1995, Chemistry, With Honor
University of California, San Francisco, M.D., 2002, Medicine
University of California, Berkeley, M.P.H., 2001, Health Policy and Mgmt
St. Mary’s Medical Center, San Francisco, 06/03, Intern, Internal Medicine
University of California, San Francisco, 06/06, Resident, Neurology
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 06/08, Fellow, Neuro-oncology

Honors & Awards

  • 1999
    Nomination for “An Outstanding Lecture” UCSF Class of 2001
  • 2000
    University Fellowship, UC-Berkeley
  • 2000
    Award for “An Outstanding Lecture” UCSF Class of 2002
  • 2001
    UCSF Class of 1966 Scholarship
  • 2003
    Intern of the Year, St. Mary’s Medical Center
  • 2008
    ASCO Foundation Merit Award
  • 2009
    Awarded a fellowship to the 2nd Annual Clinical Trials Methods Course in Neurology, in Vail, Colorado, August 17-23, 2009; the course is sponsored by NINDS

Selected Publications

  1. Guerra G, Wendt G, McCoy L, Hansen HM, Kachuri L, Molinaro AM, Rice T, Guan V, Capistrano L, Hsieh A, Kalsi V, Sallee J, Taylor JW, Clarke JL, Almaraz ER, Wiencke JK, Eckel-Passow JE, Jenkins RB, Wrensch M, Francis SS. Functional germline variants in DNA damage repair pathways are associated with altered survival in adults with glioma treated with temozolomide. Neuro Oncol. 2025 Jan 02.  View on PubMed
  2. McFaline-Figueroa JR, Sun L, Youssef GC, Huang R, Li G, Kim J, Lee EQ, Nayak L, Chukwueke U, Beroukhim R, Batchelor TT, Chiocca EA, Everson RG, Doherty L, Stefanik J, Partridge K, Spearman A, Myers A, Westergaard C, Russ A, Lavallee M, Smokovich A, LaForest-Roys C, Garcia Fox R, McCluskey C, Bi WL, Arnaout O, Peruzzi P, Cosgrove GR, Ligon KL, Arrillaga-Romany I, Clarke JL, Reardon DA, Cloughesy TF, Prins RM, Wen PY. Neoadjuvant anti-PD1 immunotherapy for surgically accessible recurrent glioblastoma: clinical and molecular outcomes of a stage 2 single-arm expansion cohort. Nat Commun. 2024 Dec 30; 15(1):10757.  View on PubMed
  3. Lucas CG, Al-Adli NN, Young JS, Gupta R, Morshed RA, Wu J, Ravindranathan A, Shai A, Oberheim Bush NA, Taylor JW, de Groot J, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Pekmezci M, Perry A, Bollen AW, Theodosopoulos PV, Aghi MK, Chang EF, Hervey-Jumper SL, Raleigh DR, Molinaro AM, Costello JF, Diaz AA, Clarke JL, Butowski NA, Phillips JJ, Chang SM, Berger MS, Solomon DA. Longitudinal multimodal profiling of IDH-wildtype glioblastoma reveals the molecular evolution and cellular phenotypes underlying prognostically different treatment responses. Neuro Oncol. 2025 Jan 12; 27(1):89-105.  View on PubMed
  4. Guerra G, Wendt G, McCoy L, Hansen HM, Kachuri L, Molinaro AM, Rice T, Guan V, Capistrano L, Hsieh A, Kalsi V, Sallee J, Taylor JW, Clarke JL, Rodriguez Almaraz E, Wiencke JK, Eckel-Passow JE, Jenkins RB, Wrensch M, Francis SS. Functional germline variants in DNA damage repair pathways are associated with altered survival in adults with glioma treated with temozolomide. medRxiv. 2024 Oct 10.  View on PubMed
  5. Taylor JW, Warrier G, Hansen HM, McCoy L, Rice T, Guerra G, Francis SS, Clarke JL, Bracci PM, Hadad S, Kelsey KT, Wrensch M, Molinaro AM, Wiencke JK. Oligodendroglioma patient survival is associated with circulating B-cells and age. Neurooncol Adv. 2024 Jan-Dec; 6(1):vdae143.  View on PubMed
  6. Bazer DA, Kolchinski A, Bush NAO, Clarke JL, Bagley SJ, Schreck KC. No drug holidays in BRAFV600E glioma patients: An argument for dose reduction of targeted therapies. Neurooncol Pract. 2024 Oct; 11(5):660-664.  View on PubMed
  7. Liu J, Jakary A, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Butowski NA, Saloner D, Clarke JL, Taylor JW, Oberheim Bush NA, Chang SM, Xu D, Lupo JM. Automatic Brain Tissue and Lesion Segmentation and Multi-Parametric Mapping of Contrast-Enhancing Gliomas without the Injection of Contrast Agents: A Preliminary Study. Cancers (Basel). 2024 Apr 17; 16(8).  View on PubMed
  8. Saijo A, Ogino H, Butowski NA, Tedesco MR, Gibson D, Watchmaker PB, Okada K, Wang AS, Shai A, Salazar AM, Molinaro AM, Rabbitt JE, Shahin M, Perry A, Clarke JL, Taylor JW, Daras M, Oberheim Bush NA, Hervey-Jumper SL, Phillips JJ, Chang SM, Hilf N, Mayer-Mokler A, Keler T, Berger MS, Okada H. A combinatory vaccine with IMA950 plus varlilumab promotes effector memory T-cell differentiation in the peripheral blood of patients with low-grade gliomas. Neuro Oncol. 2024 02 02; 26(2):335-347.  View on PubMed
  9. Autry AW, Vaziri S, Gordon JW, Chen HY, Kim Y, Dang D, LaFontaine M, Noeske R, Bok R, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Clarke JL, Oberheim Bush NA, Chang SM, Xu D, Lupo JM, Larson PEZ, Vigneron DB, Li Y. Advanced Hyperpolarized 13C Metabolic Imaging Protocol for Patients with Gliomas: A Comprehensive Multimodal MRI Approach. Cancers (Basel). 2024 Jan 13; 16(2).  View on PubMed
  10. Mellinghoff IK, Lu M, Wen PY, Taylor JW, Maher EA, Arrillaga-Romany I, Peters KB, Ellingson BM, Rosenblum MK, Chun S, Le K, Tassinari A, Choe S, Toubouti Y, Schoenfeld S, Pandya SS, Hassan I, Steelman L, Clarke JL, Cloughesy TF. Author Correction: Vorasidenib and ivosidenib in IDH1-mutant low-grade glioma: a randomized, perioperative phase 1 trial. Nat Med. 2024 Jan; 30(1):302.  View on PubMed
  11. Hadad S, Gupta R, Oberheim Bush NA, Taylor JW, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Young JS, Wu J, Ravindranathan A, Zhang Y, Warrier G, McCoy L, Shai A, Pekmezci M, Perry A, Bollen AW, Phillips JJ, Braunstein SE, Raleigh DR, Theodosopoulos P, Aghi MK, Chang EF, Hervey-Jumper SL, Costello JF, de Groot J, Butowski NA, Clarke JL, Chang SM, Berger MS, Molinaro AM, Solomon DA. "De novo replication repair deficient glioblastoma, IDH-wildtype" is a distinct glioblastoma subtype in adults that may benefit from immune checkpoint blockade. Acta Neuropathol. 2023 12 11; 147(1):3.  View on PubMed
  12. Strowd R, Ellingson B, Raymond C, Yao J, Wen PY, Ahluwalia M, Piotrowski A, Desai A, Clarke JL, Lieberman FS, Desideri S, Nabors LB, Ye X, Grossman S. Activity of a first-in-class oral HIF2-alpha inhibitor, PT2385, in patients with first recurrence of glioblastoma. J Neurooncol. 2023 Oct; 165(1):101-112.  View on PubMed
  13. Autry AW, Vaziri S, LaFontaine M, Gordon JW, Chen HY, Kim Y, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Molinaro A, Clarke JL, Oberheim Bush NA, Xu D, Lupo JM, Larson PEZ, Vigneron DB, Chang SM, Li Y. Multi-parametric hyperpolarized 13C/1H imaging reveals Warburg-related metabolic dysfunction and associated regional heterogeneity in high-grade human gliomas. Neuroimage Clin. 2023; 39:103501.  View on PubMed
  14. Mellinghoff IK, Lu M, Wen PY, Taylor JW, Maher EA, Arrillaga-Romany I, Peters KB, Ellingson BM, Rosenblum MK, Chun S, Le K, Tassinari A, Choe S, Toubouti Y, Schoenfeld S, Pandya SS, Hassan I, Steelman L, Clarke JL, Cloughesy TF. Vorasidenib and ivosidenib in IDH1-mutant low-grade glioma: a randomized, perioperative phase 1 trial. Nat Med. 2023 03; 29(3):615-622.  View on PubMed
  15. Tang E, Wiencke JK, Warrier G, Hansen H, McCoy L, Rice T, Bracci PM, Wrensch M, Taylor JW, Clarke JL, Koestler DC, Salas LA, Christensen BC, Kelsey KT, Molinaro AM. Evaluation of cross-platform compatibility of a DNA methylation-based glucocorticoid response biomarker. Clin Epigenetics. 2022 10 28; 14(1):136.  View on PubMed
  16. Zhang Y, Lucas CG, Young JS, Morshed RA, McCoy L, Oberheim Bush NA, Taylor JW, Daras M, Butowski NA, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Cha S, Wrensch M, Wiencke JK, Lee JC, Pekmezci M, Phillips JJ, Perry A, Bollen AW, Aghi MK, Theodosopoulos P, Chang EF, Hervey-Jumper SL, Berger MS, Clarke JL, Chang SM, Molinaro AM, Solomon DA. Prospective genomically guided identification of "early/evolving" and "undersampled" IDH-wildtype glioblastoma leads to improved clinical outcomes. Neuro Oncol. 2022 10 03; 24(10):1749-1762.  View on PubMed
  17. Vaziri S, Autry AW, Lafontaine M, Kim Y, Gordon JW, Chen HY, Hu JY, Lupo JM, Chang SM, Clarke JL, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Bush NAO, Xu D, Larson PEZ, Vigneron DB, Li Y. Assessment of higher-order singular value decomposition denoising methods on dynamic hyperpolarized [1-13C]pyruvate MRI data from patients with glioma. Neuroimage Clin. 2022; 36:103155.  View on PubMed
  18. Lucas CG, Sloan EA, Gupta R, Wu J, Pratt D, Vasudevan HN, Ravindranathan A, Barreto J, Williams EA, Shai A, Whipple NS, Bruggers CS, Maher O, Nabors B, Rodriguez M, Samuel D, Brown M, Carmichael J, Lu R, Mirchia K, Sullivan DV, Pekmezci M, Tihan T, Bollen AW, Perry A, Banerjee A, Mueller S, Gupta N, Hervey-Jumper SL, Oberheim Bush NA, Daras M, Taylor JW, Butowski NA, de Groot J, Clarke JL, Raleigh DR, Costello JF, Phillips JJ, Reddy AT, Chang SM, Berger MS, Solomon DA. Multiplatform molecular analyses refine classification of gliomas arising in patients with neurofibromatosis type 1. Acta Neuropathol. 2022 10; 144(4):747-765.  View on PubMed
  19. Bracci PM, Rice T, Hansen HM, Francis SS, Lee S, McCoy LS, Shrestha PP, Warrier G, Clarke JL, Molinaro AM, Taylor JW, Wiencke JK, Wrensch MR. Pre-surgery immune profiles of adult glioma patients. J Neurooncol. 2022 Aug; 159(1):103-115.  View on PubMed
  20. Nayak L, Standifer N, Dietrich J, Clarke JL, Dunn GP, Lim M, Cloughesy T, Gan HK, Flagg E, George E, Gaffey S, Hayden J, Holcroft C, Wen PY, Macri M, Park AJ, Ricciardi T, Ryan A, Schwarzenberger P, Venhaus R, Reyes ML, Durham NM, Creasy T, Huang RY, Kaley T, Reardon DA. Circulating Immune Cell and Outcome Analysis from the Phase II Study of PD-L1 Blockade with Durvalumab for Newly Diagnosed and Recurrent Glioblastoma. Clin Cancer Res. 2022 06 13; 28(12):2567-2578.  View on PubMed

Go to UCSF Profiles, powered by CTSI