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Staff & Members

The TRANSCEND Cancer Initiative (TCI) program promotes connections and collaborations across multiple departments to build a team science network for high-impact science and discovery. Our goal is to drive exceptional translational research across a multi-disciplinary environment to make deep advances in cancer research and, ultimately, patient care.

We have built a multifaceted team with expert leaders across MD Anderson who lead and guide the projects within the TCI.

PRIME-TR is building strategic partnerships with key researchers here at MD Anderson Cancer Center which further strengthens our commitment in advancing microbiome research and initiatives.. We work and collaborate with some of the top research PI and physicians working toward one goal to end cancer. Currently, we have ongoing collaborations with these departments.

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Breast Medical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Prevention, Emergency Medicine Research, Epidemiology, Genomic Medicine, GI Medical Oncology, Head & Neck Surgery, Immunology, Infectious Diseases, Integrative Medical Research, Lymphoma and Myeloma, Melanoma Medical Oncology, Neuro-Oncology, Radiation Oncology, Stem Cell Transplantation, Surgical Oncology, Thoracic Head & Neck Medical Oncology, Translational Molecular Pathology, and Urology.

TRANSCEND Fellows

Faraz Afridi, M.D.
Pediatrics

Dr. Afridi’s areas of interest include pediatrics, adolescents, and young adults. He is currently participating in a retrospective study involving AYA melanoma vs. late-stage melanoma, patients to find potential differences in overall survival, disease-free progression, response rates, gut microbiome signatures, intramural microbiome signatures, and alpha diversity.

Reed Ayabe, M.D.
Surgical Oncology

Dr. Ayabe is a recent MD Anderson Complex General Surgical Oncology fellowship graduate pursuing an additional year of T32-funded research. His clinical focus is in hepatopancreatobiliary and complex gastrointestinal surgical oncology. From a research standpoint, he is interested in elucidating the role of the microbiome in the dissemination and outgrowth of metastatic colorectal cancer in the liver and peritoneal cavity. He also has a particular interest in the factors mediating biliary tract cancer response to immunotherapy and will be studying the impact of the tumor immune microenvironment and microbiome in this area as well.

Neal Bhutiani, M.D., Ph.D.
Colon and Rectal Surgery

Dr. Bhutiani completed his General Surgery residency at the University of Louisville in 2021. While at the University of Louisville, he earned a Ph.D. in Immunology, focusing on colon mucosal immunology and colon-directed immunotherapy. His clinical interest encompasses primary and metastatic colon and rectal cancer, and his research focuses on overcoming the resistance of colon and rectal cancer to immunotherapy and gut and tumor microbiome modulation to augment response to systemic therapy in colon and rectal cancer.

Florentia Dimitriou, M.D., Ph.D.
Genomic Medicine

Dr. Dimitriou is a board-certified dermatologist and physician-scientist (MD PhD) with a research focus in clinical and translational research in skin cancer. She trained at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, the Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, and is a former fellow of the Melanoma Institute Australia.

Eleanor A. Fallon, M.D.
Surgical Oncology

Dr. Fallon is a current Complex General Surgical Oncology fellow at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. She completed her residency in General Surgery at Brown University (Providence, Rhode Island), which included a research track under the mentorship of Al Ayala Ph.D. studying PD-1/PD-L1 and their mechanistic role in neonatal and adult immunologic responses to sepsis. During her TCI year, Dr. Fallon will uncover the markers of post-operative immunosuppression in the cancer context and investigate how the gut microbiome and tumor microenvironment interplay with the clinical outcomes we see in patients getting different lines of cancer care.

Brittany Fields, M.D., MPH
Surgical Oncology

Dr. Fields’ interests are in public health and oncology, with a special emphasis on healthcare disparities. She is a general surgery resident, focusing on disruptions and alterations in the gastrointestinal system and the impact of disease pathogenesis. Given the huge economic burden and quality-of-life impact that GI malignancies have and their disproportionate effect on racial minorities in both incidence and mortality, she is invested in researching novel techniques for reducing incidence and recurrence while also respecting the historical relationship between minority groups and research.

Anish Jain, M.D.
Surgical Oncology

Dr. Jain is a surgical resident at Howard University Hospital (Washington DC) pursuing a career in Surgical Oncology. In addition to his role at the TCI, he is completing a T32 Research Fellowship within MD Anderson's Department of Surgical Oncology under the supervision of the hepatopanctreatobiliary (HPB) faculty. His research interests include HPB malignancies, gastric cancer, and HIPEC.

Anne Knisely, M.D.
Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine

Dr. Knisley received her MD degree from the University of Virginia, completed a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University Medical Center in NYC, and is now a Gynecologic Oncology fellow at MD Anderson, of which the first two years are dedicated to research and obtaining an MPH degree. Her research interests include early-phase clinical trial development, the use of immunotherapy in gynecologic malignancies, and the role of the microbiome in ovarian cancer.

Melissa Pham, M.D., MPH
Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine

Dr. Pham is a third-year clinical fellow in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine, specializing in incorporating clinical trial design and implementation into her future academic career. During her first two years of research fellowship under the NIH T32 Institutional Training Grant, she worked with the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics (Phase 1 Program) to understand the essential facets of early-phase clinical trials. Dr. Pham also focuses on thoughtful patient selection and exploring strategies to better stratify patients into more effective treatment regimens. She is working on a project to determine whether ctDNA can identify patients at higher risk of recurrence in patients with high-risk endometrial cancer.