Manish Aghi, MD, PhD, MAS

Principal Investigator, Brain Tumor Research Center
Member, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
Associate Professor
Department of Neurosurgery
Research Description: 

Manish Aghi is a neurosurgeon and scientist at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He completed his MD-PhD degrees through the MSTP program at Harvard Medical School, followed by neurological surgery residency and postdoctoral training at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is currently faculty in the department of neurological surgery and graduate division of biomedical sciences, as well as a principal investigator in the Brain Tumor Research Center at UCSF. His clinical practice is focused on the surgical management of brain and skull base tumors, with special emphasis on intraoperative brain mapping for glioma surgery, pituitary tumor surgery, and minimally invasive endoscopic skull base surgery. Work in the Aghi laboratory has been funded by NIH and private foundations since 2008 and is focused on the role of tumor-microenvironment interactions in driving aggressive biology and therapeutic resistance in benign and malignant brain tumors like pituitary adenomas and gliomas. Active areas of research include the role of tumor-associated macrophages in glioblastoma growth, whole genome sequencing of pituitary adenomas, metabolic changes occurring after anti-angiogenic therapy in glioblastoma, and the role of a tyrosine kinase-integrin receptor complex in driving invasive resistance in glioblastoma. He serves as PI on multiple industry sponsored and investigator-initiated phase I-II clinical trials comparing immunotherapy versus anti-angiogenic theray of recurrent glioblastoma, as well as investigating convection-enhanced delivery of oncolytic viruses and nanoliposomal chemotherapy to recurrent glioblastoma.

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Vascular & Cardiac Biology
Research Summary: 
Defining the interaction between tumor cells and the microenvironment in glioblastoma, including during therapeutic resistance

Websites

Publications: 

Single-cell RNA sequencing and spatial transcriptomics reveal cancer-associated fibroblasts in glioblastoma with protumoral effects.

The Journal of clinical investigation

Jain S, Rick JW, Joshi RS, Beniwal A, Spatz J, Gill S, Chang AC, Choudhary N, Nguyen AT, Sudhir S, Chalif EJ, Chen JS, Chandra A, Haddad AF, Wadhwa H, Shah SS, Choi S, Hayes JL, Wang L, Yagnik G, Costello JF, Diaz A, Heiland DH, Aghi MK

Metabolic Barriers to Glioblastoma Immunotherapy.

Cancers

Choudhary N, Osorio RC, Oh JY, Aghi MK

Multi-omic screening of invasive GBM cells in engineered biomaterials and patient biopsies reveals targetable transsulfuration pathway alterations.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Garcia JH, Akins EA, Jain S, Wolf KJ, Zhang J, Choudhary N, Lad M, Shukla P, Gill S, Carson W, Carette L, Zheng A, Kumar S, Aghi MK

Risk Factors for Significant Postoperative Hemorrhage After Pituitary Neuroendocrine Tumor Resection: A Case-Control Study of 1066 Surgeries.

Neurosurgery

Osorio RC, Aabedi AA, Carson W, Badani A, Chalif E, Theodosopoulos PV, Kunwar S, Aghi MK, Goldschmidt E

Targeting the IL4 Receptor with MDNA55 in Patients with Recurrent Glioblastoma: Results of a Phase 2b Trial.

Neuro-oncology

Sampson JH, Singh Achrol A, Aghi MK, Bankiewiecz K, Bexon M, Brem S, Brenner A, Chandhasin C, Chowdhary S, Coello M, Ellingson BM, Floyd JR, Han S, Kesari S, Mardor Y, Merchant F, Merchant N, Randazzo D, Vogelbaum M, Vrionis F, Wembacher-Schroeder E, Zabek M, Butowski N