Matthew Stachler, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor
Pathology
+1 415 514-1902
Research Description: 

Clinically, I am a Molecular Pathologist focused on using advanced, cutting edge tests to drive personalized medicine in cancer diagnostics and treatment.

My lab works to understand the process of premalignant progression to invasive cancer, specifically focusing on cancers (esophageal and gastric adenocarcinoma) and pre-malignant conditions (columnar and intestinal metaplasia or Barrett’s esophagus) of the upper gastrointestinal tract as a model system.

As a disease that is often closely monitored and sampled, Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma provides an idea system to study the changes leading up to and driving invasive disease. Additionally, Barrett’s esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma are extremely important diseases to understand in their own as esophageal adenocarcinoma has one of the fastest rising incidences of any solid tumor and despite our understanding that it arises from a metaplastic field, we still do an extremely poor job of identifying patients early before advanced disease develops.

We have taken the approach to first understand the factors important in human tissues through advanced ‘omics’ and digital imaging approaches and then use this understanding to build model systems and functional studies. It is our goal to use the knowledge and understanding gained in these studies to develop novel biomarkers, screening strategies, and treatments to identify and treat people early before advanced disease develops.

Primary Thematic Area: 
Cancer Biology & Cell Signaling
Secondary Thematic Area: 
Human Genetics
Research Summary: 
We strive to understand the events that drive progression of pre-malignant disease into invasive cancer, focusing on gastric and esophageal adenocarcinoma.
Publications: 

HER2 overexpression in urothelial carcinoma with GATA3 and PPARG copy number gains.

The oncologist

Zhu X, Chan E, Turski ML, Mendez CE, Hsu SC, Kumar V, Shipp C, Jindal T, Chang K, Onodera C, Devine WP, Grenert JP, Stohr BA, Ding CC, Stachler MD, Quigley DA, Feng FY, Chu CE, Porten SP, Chou J, Friedlander TW, Koshkin VS

Molecular analysis of persistent and recurrent Barrett's esophagus in the setting of endoscopic therapy.

Clinical and translational gastroenterology

Kumar A, Rara M, Yu M, Wen KW, Grady WM, Chak A, Iyer PG, Rustgi AK, Wang TC, Rubenstein JH, Liu Y, Kresty L, Westerhoff M, Kwon RS, Wamsteker E, Wang T, Berry L, Canto MI, Shaheen NJ, Wang KK, Abrams JA, Stachler MD

Expansion of a bacterial operon during cancer treatment ameliorates drug toxicity.

bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology

Trepka KR, Kidder WA, Kyaw TS, Olson CA, Upadhyay V, Noecker C, Stanfield D, Steiding P, Spanogiannopoulos P, Dumlao D, Turnbaugh JA, Stachler MD, Van Blarigan EL, Venook AP, Atreya CE, Turnbaugh PJ

Molecular Pathology of Gastroesophageal Cancer.

Clinics in laboratory medicine

Stachler MD, Jin RU