Research Summary

Dr. Molinaro's research interest and expertise are focused on developing and implementing statistical and machine learning methods in cancer research, spanning basic research, translational, and clinical studies. In her current roles as the Director of Biomedical Statistics and Informatics for the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery and Biostatistics Core Director for both the Brain SPORE and Program Project, Dr. Molinaro advises study design and modeling, and analyzes data from all UCSF Brain Tumor Center projects in imaging, genetics, genomics, epidemiology and immunology. She is the co-PI of the Brain SPORE Project to develop immune profile markers for risk prediction in glioblastoma patients and the co-PI of the Program Project Project to use machine learning and AI to develop spatial maps of risk from anatomical, physiological, and metabolic images. Dr. Molinaro has over one-hundred and fifty publications in addition to authoring three book chapters and several freely available software packages for the analysis of high-dimensional data. Dr. Molinaro is an elected Board of Directors Member for the Society of Neuro-Oncology as well as an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, an Associate Editor for NeuroOncology Practice and Editor for the 'Series on Biostatistics for the Practicing Clinician" for NeuroOncology Practice.

Research Funding

  • September 20, 2002 - August 31, 2023 - Brain Tumor SPORE Grant , Co-Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: P50CA097257
  • July 10, 2012 - April 30, 2018 - Novel Tree-based Statistical Methods for Cancer Risk Prediction , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: R01CA163687
  • June 1, 2006 - August 31, 2017 - Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer , Co-Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: P50CA121974
  • July 6, 2006 - June 30, 2009 - Statistical Methods for Predicting Survival Outcomes from Genomic Data , Principal Investigator . Sponsor: NIH, Sponsor Award ID: K22CA123146

Education

Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL BS, 05/92, Statistics
University of California, Berkeley, CA, MA, 05/00, Biostatistics
University of California, Berkeley, CA, PhD, 01/04, Biostatistics
National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, 06/04-06/05, Cancer Prevention / Biostatistics

Honors & Awards

  • 2004
    Evelyn Fix Prize, University of California, Berkeley
  • 2004
    Chin Long Chiang Biostatistics Student of the Year, University of California, Berkeley
  • 2006
    Elected as a Member of the International Statistical Institute.
  • 2008
    Teacher of the Year Award, Yale University School of Public Health
  • 2009
    Selected as a Yale Center for Clinical Investigation Scholar, Yale University School of Medicine
  • 2013
    Diane D. Ralston Clinical and Basic Neuroscience Teaching Award, UCSF
  • 2017
    Selected for the Teaching Scholars Program, UCSF

Selected Publications

  1. 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
  2. Kline C, Jain P, Kilburn L, Bonner ER, Gupta N, Crawford JR, Banerjee A, Packer RJ, Villanueva-Meyer J, Luks T, Zhang Y, Kambhampati M, Zhang J, Yadavilli S, Zhang B, Gaonkar KS, Rokita JL, Kraya A, Kuhn J, Liang W, Byron S, Berens M, Molinaro A, Prados M, Resnick A, Waszak SM, Nazarian J, Mueller S. Upfront Biology-Guided Therapy in Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma: Therapeutic, Molecular, and Biomarker Outcomes from PNOC003. Clin Cancer Res. 2022 09 15; 28(18):3965-3978.  View on PubMed
  3. Mohamed E, Kumar A, Zhang Y, Wang AS, Chen K, Lim Y, Shai A, Taylor JW, Clarke J, Hilz S, Berger MS, Solomon DA, Costello JF, Molinaro AM, Phillips JJ. PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway activity in IDH-mutant diffuse glioma and clinical implications. Neuro Oncol. 2022 09 01; 24(9):1471-1481.  View on PubMed
  4. Kumar A, Mohamed E, Tong S, Chen K, Mukherjee J, Lim Y, Wong CM, Boosalis Z, Shai A, Pieper RO, Gupta N, Perry A, Bollen AW, Molinaro AM, Solomon DA, Shieh JTC, Phillips JJ. CXCL14 Promotes a Robust Brain Tumor-Associated Immune Response in Glioma. Clin Cancer Res. 2022 07 01; 28(13):2898-2910.  View on PubMed
  5. 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
  6. Mueller S, Taitt JM, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Bonner ER, Nejo T, Lulla RR, Goldman S, Banerjee A, Chi SN, Whipple NS, Crawford JR, Gauvain K, Nazemi KJ, Watchmaker PB, Almeida ND, Okada K, Salazar AM, Gilbert RD, Nazarian J, Molinaro AM, Butterfield LH, Prados MD, Okada H. Mass cytometry detects H3.3K27M-specific vaccine responses in diffuse midline glioma. J Clin Invest. 2022 06 15; 132(12).  View on PubMed
  7. Guerra G, Kachuri L, Wendt G, Hansen HM, Mack SJ, Molinaro AM, Rice T, Bracci P, Wiencke JK, Kasahara N, Eckel-Passow JE, Jenkins RB, Wrensch M, Francis SS. The immunogenetics of viral antigen response is associated with subtype-specific glioma risk and survival. Am J Hum Genet. 2022 06 02; 109(6):1105-1116.  View on PubMed
  8. Cluceru J, Interian Y, Phillips JJ, Molinaro AM, Luks TL, Alcaide-Leon P, Olson MP, Nair D, LaFontaine M, Shai A, Chunduru P, Pedoia V, Villanueva-Meyer JE, Chang SM, Lupo JM. Improving the noninvasive classification of glioma genetic subtype with deep learning and diffusion-weighted imaging. Neuro Oncol. 2022 04 01; 24(4):639-652.  View on PubMed
  9. Cho Y, Molinaro AM, Hu C, Strawderman RL. Regression trees and ensembles for cumulative incidence functions. Int J Biostat. 2022 Nov 01; 18(2):397-419.  View on PubMed
  10. Raygor KP, Phelps RRL, Rutledge C, Raper DMS, Molinaro A, Fox CK, Gupta N, Abla AA. Socioeconomic factors associated with pediatric moyamoya disease hospitalizations: a nationwide cross-sectional study. J Neurosurg Pediatr. 2022 Mar 25; 1-10.  View on PubMed
  11. Molinaro AM, Wiencke JK, Warrier G, Koestler DC, Chunduru P, Lee JY, Hansen HM, Lee S, Anguiano J, Rice T, Bracci PM, McCoy L, Salas LA, Christensen BC, Wrensch M, Kelsey KT, Taylor JW, Clarke JL. Interactions of Age and Blood Immune Factors and Noninvasive Prediction of Glioma Survival. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2022 03 08; 114(3):446-457.  View on PubMed
  12. Berglund-Brown I, Nissen E, Koestler DC, Butler RA, Eliot MN, Padbury JF, Salas LA, Molinaro AM, Christensen BC, Wiencke JK, Kelsey KT. A core of differentially methylated CpG loci in gMDSCs isolated from neonatal and adult sources. Clin Epigenetics. 2022 02 21; 14(1):27.  View on PubMed
  13. Zhang Y, Molinaro AM. Categorizing continuous biomarkers: More cons than pros. Neurooncol Pract. 2022 Apr; 9(2):81-82.  View on PubMed
  14. Salas LA, Zhang Z, Koestler DC, Butler RA, Hansen HM, Molinaro AM, Wiencke JK, Kelsey KT, Christensen BC. Enhanced cell deconvolution of peripheral blood using DNA methylation for high-resolution immune profiling. Nat Commun. 2022 02 09; 13(1):761.  View on PubMed
  15. Molinaro AM. External controls to improve on glioblastoma clinical trials. Neuro Oncol. 2022 02 01; 24(2):257-258.  View on PubMed
  16. Ogino H, Taylor JW, Nejo T, Gibson D, Watchmaker PB, Okada K, Saijo A, Tedesco MR, Shai A, Wong CM, Rabbitt JE, Olin MR, Moertel CL, Nishioka Y, Salazar AM, Molinaro AM, Phillips JJ, Butowski NA, Clarke JL, Oberheim Bush NA, Hervey-Jumper SL, Theodosopoulos P, Chang SM, Berger MS, Okada H. Randomized trial of neoadjuvant vaccination with tumor-cell lysate induces T cell response in low-grade gliomas. J Clin Invest. 2022 02 01; 132(3).  View on PubMed
  17. Chen JQ, Salas LA, Wiencke JK, Koestler DC, Molinaro AM, Andrew AS, Seigne JD, Karagas MR, Kelsey KT, Christensen BC. Immune profiles and DNA methylation alterations related with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer outcomes. Clin Epigenetics. 2022 01 21; 14(1):14.  View on PubMed
  18. Aabedi AA, Young JS, Zhang Y, Ammanuel S, Morshed RA, Dalle Ore C, Brown D, Phillips JJ, Oberheim Bush NA, Taylor JW, Butowski N, Clarke J, Chang SM, Aghi M, Molinaro AM, Berger MS, Hervey-Jumper SL. Association of Neurological Impairment on the Relative Benefit of Maximal Extent of Resection in Chemoradiation-Treated Newly Diagnosed Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Wild-Type Glioblastoma. Neurosurgery. 2022 01 01; 90(1):124-130.  View on PubMed
  19. Morshed RA, Young JS, Gogos AJ, Haddad AF, McMahon JT, Molinaro AM, Sudhakar V, Al-Adli N, Hervey-Jumper SL, Berger MS. Reducing complication rates for repeat craniotomies in glioma patients: a single-surgeon experience and comparison with the literature. Acta Neurochir (Wien). 2022 02; 164(2):405-417.  View on PubMed
  20. White SD, Affolter VK, Molinaro AM, Depenbrock SM, Chigerwe M, Heller MC, Rowe JD. Skin disease in goats (Capra aegagrus hircus): a retrospective study of 358 cases at a university veterinary teaching hospital (1988-2020). Vet Dermatol. 2022 Jun; 33(3):227-e64.  View on PubMed

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