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Ronald J. Buckanovich, MD, PhD

Professor of Medicine; Director, Ovarian Cancer Center of Excellence; Co‑Director, Women’s Cancer Research Center; Co‑Leader, Cancer Biology Program, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center

I envision a world in which mothers do not die of ovarian cancer, but live to watch their children and grandchildren grow up. We are working towards this goal by developing ways to prevent the disease, better tests to diagnose the disease at a curable stage, and new treatments to increase cure rates for those who do get the disease.
Ronald J. Buckanovich, MD, PhD

Research in Brief

Dr. Buckanovich’s laboratory studies a population of inherently therapy resistant ‘quiescent’ cancer cells which are a primary driver of disease recurrence and death.  These quiescent cells can not only increase chemotherapy resistance in neighboring cancer cells but also inactivate anti-tumor immune responses with the combined effect to drive cancer recurrence and growth. His lab is developing new therapies to selectively target these quiescent cells to prevent ovarian cancer deaths—helping mothers live longer to care for their families.

  • Understanding and targeting cancer stem cells and quiescence to prevent metastasis, recurrence, and therapy resistance
  • Defining mechanisms and therapeutic approaches to obesity associate cancer
  • Developing biomarkers to identify patients with high risk uterine cancer
  • Developing biomarkers to predict response to immunotherapy
  • Creating patient tumor ‘Avatars’ to predict response to therapy.  
  • Sinno S, Imperatore J, Bai S, Gomes-Jourdan N, Mafarachisi N, Coronnello C, Zhang L, Jasarevic E, Osmanbeyoglu HU, Buckanovich RJ and Cascio S (Co-senior authors). Egfl6 Promotes Ovarian Cancer Progression by Enhancing the Immunosuppressive Functions of Tumor-Associated Myeloid Cells.  J Clin Invest. 2024 Sept 19;e: 175147. Doi:10.1172/JCI 17517.  PMID:  39312740
  • *Landen CN, *Buckanovich RJ, (*Co-First Authors) Sill MW, Mannel RS, Walker JL, DiSilvestro PA, Mathews CA, Mutch DG, Hernandez ML, Martin LP, Bishop E, Gill SE, Gordinier ME, Burger RA, Aghajanian C, Liu JF, Moore KN, Bookman MA.  Phase I and Randomized Phase II Study of Ruxolitinib with Frontline Neoadjuvant Therapy in Advanced Ovarian Cancer: An NRG Oncology Group Study.  J Clin Oncol. 2024 May 22: JCO2302076. doi: 10.1200/JCO.23.02076.  PMID:  38776484
  • Cole AJ, Panesso-Gomez S, Shah JS, Ebai T, Jiang Q, Gumusoglu-Acar E, Bello MG, Vlad A, Modugno F, Edwards RP, Buckanovich RJ.   Quiescent Ovarian Cancer Cells, in Response to Chemotherapy, Secrete Follistatin to Induce Chemotherapy Resistance in Surrounding Cells.  Clinical Cancer Research 2023 Feb 16:CCR-22-2254; doi:10.1158/1078-0432.  PMID: 36795892
  • Cascio S, Chandler C, Zhang L, Sinno S, Gao B, Onkar S, Bruno T, Vignali D, Mahdi H, Osmanbeyoglu H, Vlad A, Coffman L, Buckanovich RJ.  Cancer Associated MSC Drive Tumor Immune Exclusion and Resistance to Immunotherapy Which Can Be Overcome by Hedgehog Inhibition. Science Advances. 2021 Nov 12;7(46):eabi5790. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abi5790. Epub 2021 Nov 12. PMID: 34767446
  • Huddle BC, Grimley E, … Buckanovich RJ, Hurley TD, Larsen SD. Structure-Based Optimization of ALDH1A Inhibitors as Potential Adjuncts to Ovarian Cancer Chemotherapy. J Med Chem. 2018. PMID: 30221940
  • Coffman LG, Orellana TJ, Liu T, Frisbie LG, Normolle D, Griffith K, Uppal S, McLean K, Berger JL, Boisen M, Courtney-Brooks M, Edwards RP, Lesnock J, Mahdi H, Olawalye A, Sukumvanich P, Taylor SE, Buckanovich RJ.  Phase I Trial of Ribociclib with Platinum Chemotherapy in Recurrent Ovarian Cancer.  JCI Insight 2022 Aug 16:e 160573. Doi.org/10.1172.  PMID: 35972817
  • Bai S, Ingram P, Chen YC, … Yoon E, Buckanovich RJ. EGFL6 Regulates Asymmetric Division, Maintenance, and Metastasis of ALDH+ Ovarian Cancer Cells. Cancer Res. 2016;76(21):6396–6409. PMID: 27803106
  • Coffman LG, Pearson AT, Frisbie LG, Freeman Z, Christie L, Bowtell DD, and Buckanovich RJ. Ovarian Carcinoma-Associated Mesenchymal Stem Cells Arise from Tissue-Specific Normal Stroma. Stem Cells 2019 Feb;37(2):257-269. Doi: 10.1002/stem2932. Epub 2018 Nov. 2 PMID: 30353617

For additional publications, click here.

Jun 13, 2025
Ronald Buckanovich, MD, PhD Appointed as Endowed Chair in Immunotherapy

Nov 13, 2024
$1 Million Magee Prize Awarded to Team Studying Endometrial Cancers

Sep 30, 2023
MAGEE-WOMENS RESEARCH ROUNDUP: SEPTEMBER 2023

Mar 7, 2023
Chemotherapy-Resistant Ovarian Cancer Cells Protect Their Neighbors

Jun 28, 2019
Dr. Ron Buckanovich: Building a Better Model for Clinical Trial Testing

Jun 24, 2019
Dr. Ron Buckanovich: Getting to the Root of Ovarian Cancer

Mar 6, 2019
Targeting Stem-Like Cells Could Prevent Ovarian Cancer Recurrence

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