Medical oncologist studying the intersection of cancer genomics, immunology and metastasis. izarlab.com
New York, NY
- Tweets 671
- Following 195
- Followers 993
- Likes 1,070
bizarMD retweeted
A Translational Grant from @TheVFoundation will accelerate @BizarMD's work in advancing a first-in-class therapy developed at @ColumbiaMed that could transform treatment for cancers driven by chromosomal instability. Read more- cancer.columbia.edu/news/tur…
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bizarMD retweeted
Thrilled and appreciative to have received a @ConquerCancerFd YIA to support my work on cancer dormancy. Many thanks to @columbiacancer and especially to @BizarMd for ongoing mentorship. See you at ASCO!
We're thrilled to officially announce the 2026 class of Conquer Cancer Grants and Awards recipients! 🔬 These grants empower the next generation of physician-scientists to turn innovative ideas into clinical breakthroughs. Congratulations to the new class—see you in Chicago for #ASCO26!
Full list of recipients here: bit.ly/4x0qpBF
#ResearchConquersCancer #ConquerCancer @ASCO
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bizarMD retweeted
#ResearchWednesday -- We are proud to highlight @LuthriaKaran @BizarMd of @ColumbiaPS @ColumbiaMed, recipient of an MRF Medical Student Award funded in memory of Terri Dietrich Moose.
Karan's research titled, "Defining Genomic Programs of Dormancy and Reactivation in Melanoma," seeks to compare primary and metastatic tumors to identify the exact founder cells that started the metastastis and understand what makes these cells different from others.
Of his work, Karan shares, "Even after a melanoma is removed, a small number of cancer cells can sometimes escape early, remain dormant or ‘asleep’ for years, and later wake up to form tumors elsewhere in the body. As part of the Izar group at Columbia, my work aims to understand which melanoma cells have this ability, how long they remain dormant, and what genetic changes may trigger their reactivation. By comparing original melanoma tumors with later metastases from the same patients, we hope to identify vulnerabilities in these dangerous dormant cells and ultimately develop strategies to keep them asleep or prevent melanoma from returning.”
Click the link to learn more about his work -- melanoma.org/news-press/rese…
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bizarMD retweeted
In our latest, a surprise - thanks to computational pathology - about immune cell clustering in prostate cancer and new ways to understand tumors, their neighborhoods, and clinical outcomes ... congrats @DYangMD et al! (link below)
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bizarMD retweeted
Happy to share the latest preprint from our lab, “Somatic mutations distinguish melanocyte subpopulations in human skin”. biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/… [1]
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bizarMD retweeted
Review @NatureCancer @BizarMd @elhamazizi @Columbia
Single-cell and spatial profiling in cancer biology and clinical oncology
nature.com/articles/s43018-0…
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Super proud of @zwalsh96. A great and well-deserved honor for your outstanding work. Excited to seeing more of your transformative research!
Huge congratulations to the recipients of the 2026 Weintraub Award! These twelve exceptional graduate students exemplify the bold, creative, and pioneering spirit embodied by Dr. Hal Weintraub. fredhutch.org/en/news/releas…
ALT Top row, left to right: Keene Abbot, Gabriella Chua, Lifei Jiang, Won Jun Kim, Ruchita Kothari and Ayush Midha. Bottom row, left to right: Rohith Rajasekaran, Yusha Sun, Andrea Terceros, Wendy Valencia Montoya, Zachary Walsh and Peter Yoon.
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Congratulations, @rongejman!! Very well deserved. We are lucky to have you part of our clinical operation and lab.
Honored to be selected as a CRI Irvington fellow. Many thanks to @CancerResearch, my postdoc mentor @BizarMd, @columbiacancer,@ColumbiaMed and my many past mentors for their ongoing support.
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bizarMD retweeted
It was an incredible honor to be hosted at @StanfordMed for the @StanfordPath annual retreat as the inaugural recipient of the national Galli Prize in Pathology! Endless thanks to @BizarMd for his mentorship and to the whole Izar lab family
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Now also with a beautiful preview of the work by @SanchoShimizu
cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092…
Our newest work from @BizarMd lab is now in print at @CellCellPress! Check out our tweetorial below to learn more about our work establishing a scalable variant classification appraoch for inborn errors of immunity, which has already directly enabled the treatment of a patient!
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We (Mori @MichaelMayMD @DrGManji ) find that in patients with resected pancreatic cancer isolated metastatic recurrence in the liver do worse than those with lung recurrence. We profiled (snRNA+lpWGS) their primaries & made an intriguing observation: nature.com/articles/s41588-0…
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Our data also suggest that subsequent metastatic behavior may be determined early in tumorigenesis and partly influenced by microenvironmental cues. More work on this intriguing concept forthcoming!...
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Grateful for many outstanding collaborators in many departments/centers @columbiacancer @Columbia @ColumbiaMed @ColumbiaSurgery @ColumbiaBME and of course supporters of our lab @NIH @theNCI @PershingSqFdn @CancerResearch @vFound @MelanomaReAlli
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Really important study that extends principles of cancer neuroscience of primary brain tumors to that of brain metastasis (in this case, in small cell lung cancer). Congrats @humsav!!
1/ Very happy to share our first publication out of the lab highlighting the role of neural activity in SCLC progression in collaboration with @michelle_monje and led by @SavchukSol and Kaylee Gentry @BWHNeurology @MGBResearchNews #CancerNeuroscience 🧵…nature.com/articles/s41586-0…
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Brilliant work. Necrosis is no longer just a non-specific process but active and NET pro-metastatic…
Proud to share @niseto’s (new PI @TheCrick) paper:
As a postdoc (@CSHL/@HopkinsMedicine), he found #NETs in necrotic tumors—I shrugged. But he looked closer: NETs block tumor vessel perfusion, causing necrosis, hypoxia, EMT & #Metastasis.
nature.com/articles/s41586-0…
@JHU_BDP @Nature
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bizarMD retweeted
For this week’s #MRFResearchWednesday, we’re spotlighting 2025 Medical Student Grant Awardee @Zwalsh96 of @ColumbiaMed, working in the Izar Lab, with @BizarMd.
His project, “Leveraging T Cell Genetic Variants to Enhance Melanoma Immunotherapies,” explores new ways to improve and strengthen treatments.
Zach shares more about his research:
“T cell immunotherapies, which harness the power of a patient’s own immune system to target and eliminate tumor cells, are becoming an increasingly promising treatment approach for melanoma, including for patients who do not respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors. However, many melanoma patients experience relapse or poor response after receiving these therapies, which highlights the critical need to engineer improved T cell therapies.
As part of the Izar group at Columbia, my work aims to address this important gap."
Read more about his work here: melanoma.org/news-press/mrfr…
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bizarMD retweeted
Now online! Scalable generation and functional classification of genetic variants in inborn errors of immunity to accelerate clinical diagnosis and treatment dlvr.it/TLT5Xf
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bizarMD retweeted
Thrilled to share the latest work from my PhD in the @BizarMd group! This has been a dream MD/PhD project, culminating in data that has already enabled access to precision therapy for a patient. Tweetorial below:
Excited to share a new paper: tinyurl.com/49u5e6by @CellCellPress: a framework to accelerate variant classification, diagnosis & treatment of immune disorders & genetic disorders more broadly. Led by superstar, juggernaut & future dermatologist @zwalsh96
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