About
Positions
Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology (tenured)
Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology
Director, G.O Discovery Lab
UCLA Health Gynecologic Cancer Surgeon
Gynecologic Cancer Surgeon West Los Angeles VA Hospital
Research Description
Sanaz Memarzadeh is a surgeon-scientist and Professor at UCLA. She directs an independent highly energized research laboratory, the G.O. Discovery Laboratory, focused on advancing care and research for women impacted by gynecologic cancers. The goal at the G.O. Discovery Laboratory is to improve the way we treat patients with gynecologic cancers. As part of this goal, they are looking for effective and better tolerated therapies for these diseases, including ovarian cancer and endometrial cancers.
The GO discovery laboratory is funded by federal, state and philanthropic sources.
The goals of the lab are:
- Explore unique cell types in ovarian and endometrial cancers causing relapse of disease and chemo resistance.
- High throughput drug screening and testing drug combinations using disease in a dish model to overcome ovarian cancer platinum resistance.
- Targeting therapy resistant ovarian cancers with cell-based immunotherapies using novel off the shelf immune cells such as iNKT and super charge NK cells.
- Development of physiologically relevant in vivo disease models with patient derived xenografts as a powerful platform for testing novel therapeutics.
- Defining the cellular lineage and therapeutic targets in ovarian and uterine carcinosarcomas
Current Lab Members
- Laura James-Allan, Ph.D., Project Scientist, ljamesallan@mednet.ucla.edu
- Gabriella DiBernardo, Lab Manager, gdibernardo@mednet.ucla.edu
- Lauryn Ruegg, Staff Research Associate I, lruegg@mednet.ucla.edu
- Christopher Ochoa, Graduate Student, christopherochoa@mednet.ucla.edu
Education and Degree(s)
- University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA; B.S., 1992
- University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA; M.D., 1996
- David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA (Formerly UCLA School of Medicine); Residency, 2000
- David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Fellowship, 2003
- University of California Los Angeles; Ph.D., 2008
Membership and Service
- American Society of Clinical Oncology – ASCO
- Society of Gynecologic Oncology
- American College of Surgeons
- NIH Study Section, Member - Mechanisms of Cancer Therapeutics