Academic Section(s):
Radiation Oncology
Education:
Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, 2014
M.D. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA. 2018
Radiation Oncology Residency, Mayo College of Medicine, Jacksonville, FL, 2023
Residency:
Radiation Oncology Residency, Mayo College of Medicine, Jacksonville, FL, 2023
Clinical/Research Interests:
As a clinician with a strong interest in women’s oncological care, I primarily treat breast and gynecological malignancies. My main research goals include identifying and modulating biological predictors of radiation/chemotherapy response and in evaluating molecular basis of oncological outcome disparities in women’s cancers.
I am particularly interested in identifying and exploiting immunological mechanisms underlying radiation and chemotherapy resistance to achieve durable disease control in breast and cervical cancers. Additionally, I am interested in investigating the effectiveness of alternative radiation therapy modalities including neutron capture therapy, and whether novel functional imaging modalities could be used to identify tumor hypoxia and improve treatment response in difficult to treat malignancies.
Our lab has recently identified a M2 macrophage marker protein as a key mediator of radiation response in breast cancer. We believe its inhibition may overcome the commonly documented radiation resistance properties of triple negative breast cancer, and as such, we are currently working towards developing a clinical trial to further investigate this concept.
Select Publications:
Seneviratne D, Ma J, Tan X, Kwon YK, Muhammad E, Melhem M, DeFrances MC, Zarnegar R. Genomic instability causes HGF gene activation in colon cancer cells, promoting their resistance to necroptosis. Gastroenterology. 2015 Jan; 148 (1):181-191.e17 Epub 2014 Sept 20 PMID: 25244939 PMCID: 4274190 DOI: 10.1053/j.gastro.2014.09.019 18.
Ma J, Zou C, Guo L, Seneviratne DS, Tan X, Kwon YK, An J, Bowser R, DeFrances MC, Zarnegar R. Novel Death Defying Domain in Met entraps the active site of caspase-3 and blocks apoptosis in hepatocytes. Hepatology. 2014 May; 59 (5):2010-21 Epub 2014 Apr 01 PMID: 24122846 PMCID: 3975826 DOI: 10.1002/hep.26769
Seneviratne D, Advani P, Trifiletti DM, Chumsri S, Beltran CJ, Bush AF, Vallow LA. Exploring the Biological and Physical Basis of Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) as a Promising Treatment Frontier in BC. Cancers (Basel). 2022 Jun 18;14(12):3009. doi: 10.3390/cancers14123009. PMID: 35740674; PMCID: PMC9221373
Boichuk S, Lee DJ, Mehalek KR, Makielski KR, Wozniak A, Seneviratne DS, Korzeniewski N, Cuevas R, Parry JA, Brown MF, Zewe J, Taguchi T, Kuan SF, Schoffski P, Debiec-Rychter M, Duensing A. Unbiased compound screening identifies unexpected drug sensitivities and novel treatment options for gastrointestinal stromal tumors. Cancer Res. 2014 Feb 15; 74 (4):1200-13 Epub 2014 Jan 02 PMID: 24385214 DOI: 10.1158/0008- 5472.CAN-13-1955 20.
Thorpe CS, DeWees TA, Laughlin BS, Vallow LA, Seneviratne D, Pockaj BA, Cronin PA, Halyard MY, Vern-Gross TZ, McGee LA, McLaughlin SA, Voss MM, Golafshar MA, Bulman GF, Vargas CE. Pilot/Phase II Trial of Hypofractionated Radiation Therapy to the Whole Breast Alone Before Breast Conserving Surgery. Adv Radiat Oncol. 2023 Jan-Feb;8(1):101111. doi: 10.1016/j.adro.2022.101111