Our research is focused on translational tumor immunology – discovering new targets and pathways in the tumor microenvironment that can lead to improvements in patient responses to immune-based therapeutics.

The field of immunotherapy has exploded in the last several years with many successes and cures observed in patients, however few responses have been observed in pancreatic cancer.  Our laboratory is focused on further understanding the pancreatic tumor microenvironment and determining the mechanisms of resistance to immune-based therapeutics.  Many of these same immunsuppressive pathways observed in pancreatic cancer are also observed in other inflammatory diseases, such as chronic pancreatitis.  Our lab is also interested in uncovering immune-based targets and pathways in other pancreatic diseases.  Additionally, the laboratory is also investigating the use of dietary nutritional intervention to modulate inflammation in chronic diseases and cancer.

The ultimate goal of this work is to discover and identify novel immunological pathways that we can target in patients to hopefully improve responses in patients with cancer and inflammatory diseases.

Mace Laboratory News 

CONGRATULATIONS to Dr. Mace on his promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure! (Updated May 16, 2024).

 

CONGRATULATIONS to Debi Mukherjee  and Jess Wedig (Updated February 26, 2024)

The entire lab attended the 26th annual Translational Research Cancer Centers Consortium (TRCCC) this past week.  Both Debi and Jess were awarded for their oral talks in trainee breakout sessions!  Huge congrats and great job representing the Mace Lab!

 

CONGRATULATIONS to Debi Mukherjee (Updated January 04, 2024)

Debi, 5th year MCDB student in the laboratory for being awarded the prestigious OSU Presidential Fellowship!!!  We are all proud of the work she has accomplished and this award is an attestment to how hard she works.  Very well deserved!!!

 

Congrats Debi on her first author manuscript recently published in iScience! (Updated November 1, 2023)

Mukherjee D, Chakraborty S, Bercz L, D’Alesio L, Wedig J, Torok M, Pfau T, Lathrop H, Jasani S, Guenther A, McGue J, Adu-Ampratwum D, Fuchs JR, Frankel TL, Pietrzak M, Culp S, Strohecker AM, Skardal A, and Mace TA. Tomatidine targets ATF4-dependent signaling and induces ferroptosis to limit pancreatic cancer progression. iScience, 2023. PMID: 37554459.

 

 

 

 

Congrats Debi and Jess – Updated 12/10/2022

Congrats to Debi on her recent Pelotonia Graduate Fellowship. Her abstract was also recently selected for a flash talk at the PIIO 2022 annual symposium.   Also, congrats to Jess for her 2nd place poster award which received at the PIIO 2022 annual symposium.

 

         

 

 

New lab members- Updated 11/21/2022

The Mace lab is growing with new undergraduate students Abby and Priya.  Welcome to the lab!  We recently celebrated the holidays early due to everyone’s travel schedules.  We had a great time celebrating all our successes at Cap City Diner in Grandview.

 

 

New Manuscript! – Updated 06/29/2022

Very excited to announce publication of a new research article from our lab in collaboration with Drs. Phelps/Coss Labs in IJMS titled, “The Neonatal Fc Receptor (FcRn) Is Elevated in Monocyte-Derived Immune Cells in Pancreatic Cancer”. https://www.mdpi.com/1695122

FcRn is responsible for recycling of IgG mabs and albumin throughout the body and dysfunctional activity in cancer could be responsible ICI responses.  Using mass CyTOF we observed elevated expression of FcRn on MDSC and other myeloid populations on PBMCs of patients with PDAC.

Future investigations into FcRn activity may further elucidate possible mechanisms of poor efficacy of antibody immunotherapies in patients with PDAC.

Study was spearheaded by grad student Justin Thomas. Many thanks to all our collaborators:

                 

Accomplishments and News- Updated 03/23/2022

Award:  We are excited to announce that Debi won first place for her oral presentation at the OSU Hayes Research Forum on her work on Pancreatic cancer and tomatidine.  So proud of Debi and her accomplishment…well deserved for all her hard work!

New Mace lab member:  We are excited to announce a new addition to the Mace Laboratory.  Jess Wedig has joined the lab as a full time MCDB graduate student!  Her PhD research projects will be investigating cancer immunosuppression and immunotherapy.  Happy to have her join the group and looking forward to having her in the laboratory!

Pelotonia 2021 – Updated 08/09/2021

Another great Pelotonia ride.  A little different this year (w/COVID precautions) and definitely a little hotter.  The Mace Lab had great support from everyone and the Guts in Gear team had another great year of fundraising.  Congrats to undergraduate Pelotonia Fellow student Lena Bercz for her first successful ride.  Great job to all involved!

Mace Laboratory Summer Outing – Updated 06/23/2021

With everyone vaccinated and things a “little” calmer, we decided to have a lab lunch to celebrate our accomplishments and to finally gather as a group again.  We all enjoyed some good German beer and food at the Hofbrauhaus here in Columbus.  We wish all the luck to Kriti and Rahul as they leave the lab and continue on in their studies!

New Published Work from the Laboratory. – Updated 12/15/2020

Debi Mukherjee (Graduate Student MCDB) and Mallory DiVincenzo (Dr. Carson Lab) are co-first authors on a new publication from the laboratory.  This work was recently published work from the laboratory in Scientific Reports on the use of a soy-tomato dietary intervention for reducing inflammation and disease severity in a pre-clinical animal model of chronic pancreatitis (CP). We discovered that a soy-tomato enriched diet could reduce severity of CP in a caerulein-induced mouse model. Serum lipase and amylase levels were restored in CP mice fed a soy-tomato enriched diet. Interestingly, we also discovered that this dietary intervention improved the overall activity and health of mice with CP. Systemically and also locally within the pancreas we observed reductions in inflammatory cytokines and immune populations in mice fed a soy-tomato diet with CP.

We thank the our funding from the National Pancreas Foundation for supporting this research.  This research project is a joint collaboration with Drs. Mace, Cooperstone, and Hart.

Link to the paper can be found HERE.

New Review Article Published! – Updated 10/14/2020

A new graduate student in the lab (Debi Mukherjee) and undergraduate student (Lena Bercz) has published a new review article on the role of ATF4 in regulating cellular immunity in the journal Immunology Letters.  Debi and Lena worked hard on this review during the quarantine period when little in person research was allowed.  I commend both of them for completing this review on a new protein (ATF4) our lab is currently investigating in pancreatic cancer.

 

 

New publication and funding!!! – Updated 07/13/2020

New Publication – Very Excited to announce the lab’s work investigating CD200 in pancreatic cancer was recently published in the Journal for the ImmunoTherapy of Cancer (JITC; IF 9.9).  More info HERE.

 

New Funding Announcement – Our grant submitted to the National Pancreas Foundation was awarded to investigate: Soy-tomato enriched diet modulates inflammation in chronic pancreatitis.  We are excited that this research has been selected for funding and will hopefully propel this project to a study in patients with chronic pancreatitis.  LINK

 

New additions to the Mace Lab Team! – Updated 04/27/2020

The laboratory is happy to welcome two new members to the Mace laboratory!

First, we welcome the lab’s first graduate student Debi Mukherjee who is a PhD student in the MCDB program here at OSU.  She will focus her work on the pancreatic cancer projects in the laboratory.

 

Second, we welcome Shrina Jasani to the lab as a new undergraduate research volunteer.  Shrina will be a sophomore next year and is looking to get started and learning research techniques in the lab.

 

Mace Laboratory News – Updated 03/11/2020

March 2020 – We had another great TRCCC meeting held in Seven Springs, PA.  Many great talks focused on cancer immunology and fantastic trainee sessions.  The 2021 meeting will be organized by OSU with Drs. Mace and Baiocchi running the meeting.

 

July 2019 – Dr. Mace was featured on Pelotonia’s Facebook live interview series to discuss his laboratory’s funded IDEA grant.  See below:

 

 

 

 

 

May 2019 – Welcome Molly Torok to the laboratory as our new research assistant.  She is taking over research and laboratory managing duties from Fouad.

 

 

Mace Laboratory News – Updated 12/17/2018

December 2018 – Dr. Mace was awarded a Pelontonia Idea award from OSUCCC!  We are searching for a postdoctoral researcher to join the laboratory.  If interested in joining the lab, please email your CV and a cover letter to thomas.mace@osumc.edu.

August 2018 Pelotonia 2018 – The laboratory had another amazing Pelotonia bike ride this year!  Our lab for the first time was apart of the GHN division team, Guts in Gear, and raised over $5,000 in donations for 2018.  Thanks to all that donated and know that these funds will go directly to cancer research completed here at The James!