Pamela Hershberger, PhD

Specializing In:

  • Lung cancer therapeutics
  • Vitamin D-based combination therapies

Research Interests:

  • Chemoprevention of aerodigestive malignancies
  • Elucidating the effects of e-cigarettes and tobacco smoke exposure on the airway epithelium
  • Novel approaches to exploiting vitamin D metabolites in lung cancer treatment

Positions

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center

  • Distinguished Member
  • Department of Oral Oncology

Background

Education and Training

  • Post-doctoral - Institute for Molecular Virology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
  • Post-doctoral - Department of Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
  • PhD - Department of Biochemistry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH

Fellowship

  • University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
  • University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

Professional Memberships

  • American Association for Cancer Research

Honors & Awards

  • 2019 - Graduate Student Association Award for Faculty Excellence in Mentoring and Teaching
  • 2018 - Dean's Award for Excellence in Graduate Education

Research Overview

Work within my laboratory focuses on the prevention and treatment of lung cancer. Specifically, we seek to establish and understand the role of vitamin D metabolites in delaying lung tumor development and progression. Ongoing projects are designed to: (1) establish the role of dietary vitamin D3 in preventing lung cancer; (2) exploit vitamin D-mediated suppression of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition to prevent failure of molecularly targeted agents in lung cancer; and (3) identify novel strategies for overcoming vitamin D resistance in molecularly defined subsets of lung cancer.

Work in my laboratory is supported by NIH/NCI and the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation.

Women in Science: Pamela Hershberger, PhD

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Women in Science: Pamela Hershberger, PhD
https://www.roswellpark.org/diversity/corporate-social-responsibility

Publications

  Full Publications list on PubMed

Key Publications

  • Upadhyay SK, Verone A, Shoemaker S, Qin M, Liu S, Campbell M, Hershberger PA. 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3) signaling capacity and the epithelial-mesenchymal transition in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC): Implications for use of 1,25(OH)2D3 in NSCLC treatment. Cancers (Basel). 2013 Nov 8;5(4):1504-21.
  • Verone-Boyle AR, Shoemaker S, Attwood K, Morrison CD, Hershberger PA. Diet-Derived 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 activates VDR target gene expression and suppresses EGFR mutant non-small cell lung cancer growth in vitro and in vivo. Oncotarget. 2016. 7(1):995-1013.
  • Liu C, Shaurova T, Shoemaker S, Petkovich M, *Hershberger PA, *Wu Y. *Co-corresponding authors. Tumor-Targeted Nanoparticles Deliver a Vitamin D-Based Drug Payload for Treatment of EGFR Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor-Resistant Lung Cancer. Molecular Pharmaceutics. 2018. 15:3216-3226.
  • Shaurova T, Dy GK, Battaglia S, Hutson A, Zhang L, Zhang Y, Lovly CM, Seshadri M, Goodrich DW, Johnson CS, Hershberger PA. Vitamin D3 metabolites demonstrate prognostic value in EGFR-mutant lung adenocarcinoma and can be deployed to oppose acquired therapeutic resistance. Cancers 2020. 12:675.
  • Shaurova T, Zhang L, Goodrich DW, Hershberger PA. Understanding Histologic Transformation as a Path to Targeted Therapy Failure in EGFR-mutant Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Frontiers in Genetics-Genomic Medicine, 2020.