News & Media

September 25, 2025

September 1, 2025

The Tran Lab moved to MD Anderson, where Phuoc was recruited as professor and chair of Genitourinary Radiation Oncology.

December 18, 2024

Phil was selected for a Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) Young Investigator Award (YIA) for his proposal entitled, "Integrating Artificial Intelligence and Genomic Profiling for Personalized Treatment in Oligometastatic Prostate Cancer." The PCF YIA was created with the goal to identify future research leaders who will keep the field of prostate cancer research vibrant with new ideas.

October 11, 2024

The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center held a new research event called Cancer Research Day. Tran Lab members presented their research and were awarded the following prizes: First Place Poster Presentation (Audrey); Third Place Poster Presentation (Ajmal); and Third Place Trainee Poster Presentation (Triet).

September 29, 2024

Phuoc was invited to give a lecture entitled, "The Space-Time Continuum in Metastatic Castration-Sensitive Prostate Cancer: The Final Frontier?" at the Presidential Symposium: New Innovations in Genitourinary Cancers at the Americal Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. 

June 12, 2024

Xiaolei was awarded a T32 Cancer Biology Training Grant Fellowship for her proposal, "Metabolic Implications of Radiation Response in Oligometastatic Prostate Cancer." This grant will extend her scientific and clinical skills through a unique integration of multi-departmental resources, providing a protected transitional period between a research-mentored fellowship position and an independently funded faculty position.

May 27, 2024

Phuoc was graciously hosted by Drs. Lorenzo Livi and Giulio Francolini at the Careggi University Hospital in Florence, Italy. This group is helping to drive influential work in the oligometastatic prostate cancer space with such trials as ARTO and PERSIAN.

May 1, 2024

The Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) Consortium Meeting at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Shady Grove Campus in Rockville, MD, was a hybrid meeting hosting national and international SCLC experts. It covered the most recent developments in SCLC biology, models, tumor heterogeneity and plasticity, immunology and immunotherapy, new therapy targets and treatment resistance. Dipa and Triet gave talks on their thesis work at this meeting.

October 2, 2023

Phuoc was presented with the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Mentorship Award at the ASTRO Annual Meeting in San Diego. The award recognizes extraordinary role models in radiation oncology who have excelled as mentors by demonstrating outstanding commitment to the professional development of their mentees as clinicians, educators and researchers. 

June 12, 2023

The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center held its Annual Research Retreat. Tran Lab members represented well and Jinhee took home an Outstanding Poster Presentation award. 

May 18, 2023

Congratulations to Dipanwita for passing her Ph.D. oral qualifying exam. She impressed her committee with her preparation and improvisational abilities. 

April 29, 2023

Matthew was awarded an American Urological Association (AUA) Best Poster for collaborative work funded by the Movember Foundation entitled, "Multi-Institutional Analysis of Metastasis Directed Therapy With or Without Androgen Deprivation Therapy in Oligometastatic Castration Sensitive Prostate Cancer" at the AUA Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. 

March 31, 2023

The University of Maryland Department of Radiation Oncology held its First Annual Research Symposium. Tran Lab member Audrey took home the Second Place Poster Presentation award.

January 30, 2023

Triet represented the lab at the U54 ARTNet Kickoff meeting in Houston, TX. He gave a talk entitled, "Investigating mechanisms of tumorigenesis and chemoradiation response in lung cancer." He was one of the only graduate students who gave an oral presentation (and was the solo Tran Lab member present!).

December 31, 2022

Multiple Principal Investigators (MPIs) Christopher McFarland and Phuoc were awarded a National Cancer Institute (NCI) 1R01CA271540 grant entitled, "Tumor-barcoding coupled with high-throughput sequencing for quantitative radiogenomics of the abscopal response in NSCLC."

October 23, 2022

The Tran Lab attended the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting in San Antionio, TX, and were well represented. Matthew Deek, Phil and Phuoc, among others, gave oral presentations (Phil gave two orals!) and post-presentation interviews.

August 1, 2022

We were awarded a National Cancer Insitute (NCI) U54CA273956 grant for our Radiation Oncology-Biology Integration Network Oligometastasis (ROBIN OligoMET) Center which is focused on understanding how radiation therapy can affect the metastatic process particularly in low-volume or oligometastatic prostate cancer. Our OligoMET Center brings together in-depth experience, knowledge and high-level skills from the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB), Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) and Thomas Jefferson University (TJU).

June 2, 2022

Phil and Phuoc were selected for an American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) poster discussion session for their posters, "Prostate-specific membrane antigen PET response associates with radiographic progression-free survival following stereotactic ablative radiation therapy in oligometastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer" and "The SALV-ENZA Trial," respectively.

April 12, 2022

Phuoc gave a talk in the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) AACR National Meeting Forum: Oligometastatic Disease (New Orleans, LA) entitled, "Understanding Oligometastatic Prostate Cancer Through Biomarker-Driven Research: Paired Basic-Clinical Interrogation." The session was moderated by Dr. Ralph Weichselbaum, co-inventor of the concept of oligometastatic disease.

March 26, 2022

Phuoc was asked to join the faculty of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Refresher Course series for the next 3 years. He gave a talk entitled, “NRG Oncology GU Translational Science Portfolio: Initiatives to Improve Precision Medicine Radiation Management."

December 31, 2021

Phuoc is being supported by an anonymous donor to begin a Precision Radiation Oncology (PRO) initiative in the University of Maryland Department of Radiation Oncology. This very generous donation will fund efforts in precision medicine (PM) allowing for greater access to genomics tests, partnering with industry, novel PM clinical-translational studies and furthering pre-clinical work to improve outcomes of patients with cancer.

December 6, 2021

Phuoc was recruited as Professor and Vice Chair of Research to the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Maryland. He will oversee the general research strategy of the department including working closely with Physics.

November 9, 2021

Congratulations to Matthew Deek for his Department of Defense (DoD) Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) Physician Research Award entitled, "Understanding the Role of p53 in the Development and Progression of Oligometastatic Castration-Sensitive Prostate Cancer." This is an amazing start to his independent Assistant Professor faculty position in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. 

July 29, 2021

Congratulations to Christine for a successful defense of her thesis entitled, "Integrated Transcriptomic and Proteomic Analysis Reveals Role of the Hexosamine Biosynthetic Pathway in Invasion and Metastasis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma." Chistine will now go west and on to her next challenge as a medical student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles.

June 9, 2021

It's the conclusion to a successful year for Matthew Deek, who was appointed Johns Hopkins University Radiation Oncology Chief Resident and was the recipient of a Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Roentgen Resident Research Award at graduation. Matthew is the third member of the Tran Lab to receive this award (Ryan Phillips in 2020 and Jing Zeng in 2011).

April 4, 2021

Francesca Carrieri gave a talk entitled "Identification and characterization of the molecular mechanisms of SCLC chemo-radiation resistance" at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Special Conference: Radiation Science and Medicine Plenary Session.

May 1, 2021

Phuoc was awarded a Department of Defense (DoD) Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) grant to identify liquid and imaging biomarkers to assist in risk stratification of men with oligometastatic prostate cancer treated with metastasis-directed stereotactic ablative radiation therapy with or without radium Ra 223 dichloride in the Baltimore RAVENS trial.

April 1, 2021

The Multiple Principal Investigators (MPI) team of Drs. Christine Hann, Luigi Marchionni and Phuoc Tran were awarded a supplement grant to develop a novel mouse model of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) mimicking the SCLC-Y/I subtype with goals of elucidating mechanisms of resistance to chemoradiation in SCLC.

January 1, 2021

Phuoc and Dr. Ken Pienta with a multidisciplinary team were granted a Challenge Award to examine consolidation of all sites of macroscopic disease with stereotactic ablative radiation in combination with radiolabeled systemic therapies in men with oligometastatic prostate cancer using first-in-man clinical trials and complimentary correlative approaches.