Category: Uncategorized

Novel work from graduate student team of Michael Sturdivant and Andrew Truong is published in Nature Communications!  Their work demonstrates that APOBEC3A promotes squamous transdifferentiation through IL1A, which is a highly targetable pathway.  We hope that inhibiting squamous transdifferentiation may aid in the prevention of therapeutic resistance.

Emily was voted best poster by the PEOPLE! at the 2025 Lineberger Trainee day.  Congrats Emily! Read more here!

After extremely productive years in the Kim Lab we bid farewell to Aki, who will return to Kyoto, Japan to start his independent career as an attending urologist. We will miss you Aki and your entire talented family! Thanks Emily for the wonderful cake!

Emily wins Best Poster at LCCC Trainee Day!  Congrats on a job well done.

So proud to see the intellectual and experimental growth of our newly minted Dr. Wolfgang Beckabir.  He’s back to clinical rotations and will soon be a “double doc”.

Annual Lab Party with White Elephant!!!  Teammates, family, friends, and fun!

Michael wins best poster award at the Pharmacology Retreat.  Go Michael! 

What a day! Andrew successfully defended despite technical glitches with Zoom.  We will miss him dearly.

First time back to Korea in 25 years.  I was fortunate to be able to meet up with Dr. Hyo Jin Lee in Seoul!  Dr. Lee is now a Tenured Professor at Chungnam National University in Korea.  So proud of him and his accomplishments.

Michael was awarded a Chair’s Award for perseverance, leadership, and character from Dr. Henrik Dohlman (Chair of Pharmacology) at the 2023 Pharmacology Winter Party.

Kate won the Women in Urologic Oncology Best Poster Award at the Annual Society of Urology Oncology Meeting on her project studying intratumoral heterogeneity of small renal masses. Great to co-mentor her with Dr. Ray Tan!

In collaborative work with 8 other institutions and Dr. Matt Milowsky, we have published a comprehensive molecular portrait of metastatic bladder tumors. We found that tumors of the Stroma-rich molecular subtype and those expressing the TP53 E285K mutation were enriched in primary tumors from patients with metastatic disease. Please have...

We used a networks-based approach to identify DNA damage repair (DDR) genes not associated with TMB yet predictive of immune checkpoint response. The cover depicts a bipartite network of a subset of TCGA samples (blue pentagons, top) and DDR genes (circular nodes, bottom) colored according to DDR pathway membership. Edges...

John Raupp, our energetic, go getting research technician is moving on to become a medical student at the University of Michigan School of Medicine. Go Big Blue!

It was a HOT summer day in Raleigh, but Kate and Billy persevered to raise money for the V Foundation and cancer research.  Yes, they had a beer afterwards.  If you want to join our team next year reach out to Billy.    

Congratulations to William for persevering and getting his work published in Cell Reports Medicine. It is a great read and was a wonderful collaboration between Peter Mucha (Mathematics, now at Dartmouth) and the Kim Lab.  If you are too lazy to read the paper, you can read our tutorial here.  ...

Congratulations to Mi for publishing this interesting study that the PBRM1 tumor suppressor gene negatively regulates endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) in a HIFα dependent manner.

We had our annual white elephant gift exchange today.  Billy decked out in his holiday gear.  

Wolf passes his Micro and Immuno oral prelim in flying colors.  Even a KN95 mask couldn’t stop him!

It is Wellness Week at UNC School of Medicine.  We decided to get a bunch of BLT’s at Merritt’s Grill for our Lab Wellness Lunch!

We bid good luck (unfortunately over Zoom) to Atsushi as he returns to Japan. We are so proud of his accomplishment during his short stint in the Kim Lab!

So proud of Yuki and the important research he is doing on NRF2 – driven bladder cancer.  In collaboration with Dr. Buddy Weissman (UNC).

So, very, very proud of former graduate student from the Kim Lab, Sean Bailey, PhD who presented his photographic debut at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro! Belonging, A Photographic Exploration of the Social Disparities in the Biological Sciences Sean always had great hands in lab.  Now we know he also has a...

William Weir, MD/PhD student in the Kim Lab and co-mentored with Peter Mucha [Mathematics], successfully defends his thesis on network analysis and the TMB Paradox using Zoom.  Our first ever virtual defense!  Note the use of social distancing.  #socialdistancingsaveslives.

Continuing the string of good luck with grants, Tracy Rose gets her Notice of Award today for her K08 (physician-scientist) grant. Wow!!!

Andrew Truong, Pharmacology graduate student in the Kim Lab, received an NIH F31 grant on his first submission and received the Notice of Award today (see below)! This grant will fund Andrew’s research for the next 3 years.

Wonderful collaborative effort between Jim and Sara to publish the RNA expression of LELC (lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma of the bladder).  Very proud of Jim, who did this work while doing double duty as our lab manager. To find out more click here

Billy was able to attend the Nobel Prize Ceremony (Stockholm Concert Hall) and Banquet (Stockholm City Hall) to honor his post-doc mentor, Dr. William G. Kaelin Jr. who shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology with Sir Peter Ratcliffe (Oxford) and Dr. Greg Semenza (Johns Hopkins). Drs. Kaelin, Ratcliffe,...

In honor of Billy’s mentor’s (Dr. William Kaelin) Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology, Dr. Kaelin’s past and present trainees  along with leaders in the oxygen sensing field organized a day long symposium at the Karolinska Institute.

Aleisha successfully defends her Thesis. We wish her well as she pursues her dream of forensic science!

Jordan Kardos, now  PhD, moves on to bigger and better things after having learned all he can in the Kim lab. He will be missed for both his programming skills as well as his unique sense of humor.

Andrew Truong (PhD student, Pharmacology) wins the Best Poster Award at the 2019 Pharmacology Retreat.  Andrew’s poster entitled: Entinostat enhances anti-tumor immune responses in bladder cancer mouse models,  was judged by the Pharmacology Faculty based upon scientific content as well as his phenomenal presentation skills.

The Oct. 9 episode of CBS News’ ’60 Minutes’ featured UNC Lineberger researchers discussing how they use IBM’s Watson to cull through and generate useful clinical insights from massive amounts of genetic data.

Dr. Saito was the recipient of the 2014 BCAN Young Investigator Award and delivered a talk describing his research at the BCAN ThinkTank 2016 held in Devner, CO.

Jordan Kardos publishes that claudin-low bladder tumors are immune infiltrated and actively immune suppressed in JCI Insight.

Tracy Rose presents at the 2016 GU Cancers Symposium. Tracy Rose, MD presents molecular epidemiology data suggesting that African-Americans have lower rates of VHL mutation and are enriched in the ccB molecular subtype.

Dr. Kim is profiled by TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) as part of their “TCGA in Action” series. William Kim, M.D., is motivated by two things: compassion and curiosity. Dr. Kim has taken these dual motivations and created a career in which he cares directly for patients and spearheads research...

Dr. William Kim has been awarded the 2014 Bladder Cancer Research Innovation Award by the The Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN) to support the funding of his project “Immune Characterization of High-Grade Bladder Cancer.”

Jeffrey Damrauer (Graduate Student) publishes PNAS paper on bladder cancer intrinsic subtypes.

Dr. Ryoichi Saito, post-doctoral fellow in the Kim Lab has been awarded a Young Investigator Award from the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network (BCAN).